Gift of Sunlight
by Thrythlind
Summary: A girl sits trapped in a homemade prison cell, waiting for the end. The end of sanity, the end of life, any sort of end. Written years ago, before I started fanfic. Also I did my best to include every one of the main games out at the time. Changeling
1. Prelude

She remembered how it had all begun. It seemed ages ago though it was in reality   
    only five years. That night walking home from her practice, she had been delayed.   
    It was dark out, but she had called her parents they knew she'd be late. This was the   
    suburbs, nothing bad ever happened here, and she had walked home alone before.
    Then Katrina ran into Jeffery Driscoll and his cronies. They were juniors and   
    didn't appreciate the "foreign" freshman girl surpassing their musical "abilities."   
    Tonight she had taken Jeffery's spot of first chair. She was almost sure to get   
    beaten, maybe worse. There were rumors about them, rumors involving drugs.
    Luckily, or rather unluckily, she knew now that the danger those boys offered was   
    nothing compared to Renfield's evils Another boy their age, whom she now as   
    Renfield, arrived. He was dressed in black and sported a Metallica t-shirt, but   
    despite his violent outward appearance actually seemed sensitive and caring. A lie   
    within a lie.
    Renfield turned Jeffery's cronies on their heels and set them running easily. None   
    of them had ever seen such a fighter, except maybe in the movies. Of course   
    Katrina thanked him for his help, but that wasn't enough for him.
    Renfield asked that she follow him, he said he had something he wanted to show   
    her. Naturally she refused, saying that she needed to get home to her family since   
    they were expecting her. This caused Renfield to fly into a rage, he had actually   
    expected her to go with him.
    Katrina was frightened now, as any reasonable kid would be of an angry punk.   
    She tried to run from him, but one command from his lips stopped her with what felt   
    like supernatural power. She knew that it was such now, and she had felt that   
    power many times since she had met Renfield that first night.
    Then she remembered being carried away to a car and not being able to do   
    anything about it. She remembered her three years as a ghoul chained to a wall and   
    forcibly injected with heroin while she sat paralyzed by her captor's gaze.
    She remembered the endless assaults on her mind as Renfield tried to impose the   
    memories he had concocted over what he thought to be her surprisingly strong will.
    She remembered being drained dry of blood, and then being wrenched back at the   
    last instant from the escape death could bring.
    She remembered the abortive escape attempts, blood bond bringing her back to   
    Renfield before she could get far away.
    She remembered the sessions with Renfield and his ghoul torturer and assassin   
    Mina. Staked and helpless. she could do nothing but feel her body being ripped and   
    torn to pieces, then feel the flesh repair itself. Even growing new limbs, always   
    returning to the same form she had when she was made a vampire.
    She remembered the first time she had referred to herself in her own thoughts, not   
    as Katrina, but as Carmilla.
    Most of all she remembered two weeks ago, her first taste of human blood.
    She remembered how they had starved her of blood until she was snatching at   
    insects for the puny juices they carried.
    She remembered how they had thrown the killer in with her, naked and bleeding   
    from small cuts all over his body.
    She remembered the terror on his face as she leaped on him without a thought and   
    fangs bared.
    She remembered the feeling of unforgiveable ecstacy as she took his life forces for   
    her own, and she remembered the guilt and revulsion that followed when the Beast   
    gave her back control.
    Then her day-sleep images slipped out of memory into possibility and became truly   
    horrifing.  
    
    Micheal hung-up the phone slowly, as the sound of the television created a white   
    noise in the background. He was trapped, there was no way out of this.
    "Ah Mr. Rohan, I was hoping to catch you before you left," a voice Micheal   
    recognized immeadiatly, and suscpected the name of its owner, began. "There has   
    been a change of plans."
    'He has my home number,' Micheal thought. 'He knows who I am.'
    "What's the problem?" he asked, calmly.
    "We think the police know of this meeting," the voice calmly explained. "We are   
    going to have a change of venue. Do you know the old factory on the edge of   
    town?"
    "Yes," he replied. Of course he knew the factory, some of the records he'd   
    uncovered indicated that the drug-lord Varney had encouraged its collapse thirty   
    years ago. Which made him at least sixty, but he appeared less than forty by all the   
    pictures. So either he was older than he looked, or there was more than one Varney   
    over the last few years. An internet quiry, made as a lark, into the name Varney   
    came up with a novel from the 1800s called Varney the Vampire. That was when   
    Micheal had begun to lean toward older than he looks.
    "I suggest we meet there," the voice said.
    "And assuming I can't make it?" he asked, knowing that the hook was coming.
    "Then I have an alternative plan for the day involving a striking young woman of   
    our mutual acquaintance." Micheal felt his stomach tighten, it was the obvious   
    answer, but it twisted him in spite of the expectation.
    "Then I have no choice." He did, however, have some options.
    "Good, I'll expect you there shortly, say an hour." The phone clicked as the one he   
    assumed was Varney, set the receiver down on his end.
    Micheal thought back to the previous month, following his younger brother to   
    determine where he went at night. The answer had been terrifying, and Micheal had   
    stepped up his lectures on responsibility. He had never confronted Bregan with his   
    knowledge, not certain of the response.
    Micheal picked up the phone again and dialed the station. Dispatch picked up and   
    in response to his name, transferred him to Lieutenant Jacobs.
    "Your back-up has already been dispatched Detective," Jacobs barked. "I suggest   
    you meet with your suscpects as arranged." He then hung-up before Micheal could   
    say anything. Micheal tried again to call the station, but no other lines seemed to be   
    operating, as absurd as that sounded. A bit more effective than merely cutting his   
    home lines, but how could it have been done without arousing some suscpision?
    There was no time to ponder that, and his personal car hadn't been fitted with a   
    radio. The circumstances left him with just one option. He checked his watch,   
    Bregan would be home in an hour, maybe longer. Too long. He jotted down a   
    quick note to his brother and ran out the door.
    "What's with the death trap bit," he asked himself, while running to his car. "Why   
    don't they just kill me and leave it at that?" The television played on, unnoticed.  
    
    Bregan returned home from a night of making the rounds of the San Francisco bars   
    and nightclubs with others of his pack. As usual, each of the five Garou had drunk   
    enough to put ten men under the table, but they were Garou. What's more, they   
    were of the Fianna tribe. Fianna didn't get drunk, they just liked to make people   
    think they did.
    He had only recently discovered his Garou heritage, somehow he had managed to   
    keep the fact hidden from his older brother. His time away for the rite of passage   
    had been explained away as a summer vacation. Of course he had met some new   
    friends on that trip, so that explained his pack. His brother had some choice words   
    with him about cutting out in the middle of a new job, but what was he going to   
    say?
    "Hey, Mike, guess what I found out this summer?" Bregan laughed a little to   
    himself as he waved goodbye to his packmates and climbed the steps to the   
    apartment he shared with his brother. Mike should be home just about now, of   
    course Bregan would catch hell for waiting until dawn to come home, but that was   
    nothing he couldn't take.
    He'd gone out and had his fun with spirits, both of the esoteric and the beverage,   
    now was the time to come back to the real world of a narc's younger brother just   
    out of college. He could just hear Mike now: "If you want to be cop, Bregan,   
    you're going to have to take more responsibility for your actions. You can't just   
    party the rest of your life, you have to stand for something..."
    He opened the door and walked into the apartment non-chalantly. The news was   
    on, detailing some story involving a semi that veered off the road and took down   
    some phone lines. Citizens were being informed that a police station was among   
    those cut off, but that the main dispatch line was fortuitously on another line, and   
    normal operations could continue.
    "Hey, Mike! I'm home, the party just crashed here!" There was no response,   
    maybe he beat him Mike home after all. "Mike?" Bregan walked into the kitchen to   
    get some soda, convinced that he had just barely beat his older brother home. His   
    eyes caught the note instantly.
    There, stuck to the refridgerator by a magnet, folded in half and written in big bold   
    letters on the outer flap.
    "I KNOW WHAT YOU ARE."
    "Ah, shit," he groaned, then grabbed the note and started to read it.
    "I'm going to a deal today, the suspects called to change the place. If I don't come   
    back alive today, avenge me. Remember the name Varney, there's more to this than   
    just a drug-lord."
    "Mike, you've gone overboard with the John Wayne shit this time."  
    
    It was pure coincidence that Jaera saw him as she was taking her morning jog.   
    Not a bad workout today, despite the fact that some whacked out thug had tried to   
    mug her. That was annoying, but he wouldn't bother anyone now. For some reason   
    his body's resistance to disease and toxins just dropped as he tried to attack her.   
    Naturally the drugs in the mugger's system killed him nearly instantly.
    However he was not the individual whose presence had her so interested now.   
    When she reached home, a small sanctum for Akashic Brotherhood mages, she   
    immeadiatly rushed to her desk and retrieved a photograph from a drawer. She   
    looked at it long and hard, activating some minor mind magick to picture than man   
    she had seen early.
    Yes, there was no doubt about it. Nathan Coleridge, the ghoul of the Sabbat   
    Brujah who had killed her older sister and mentor, was in town. That meant that   
    Jared Mason was here as well. She had found her original quarry, as unlikely as that   
    seemed. Now she could put her knowledge of the Kindred to the test.
    She heard her avatar's voice calling to her, urging her to take the offensive, swoop   
    upon her prey like the hawk that she was in her soul. She never imagined that she   
    would find him again so soon, but it seemed fitting somehow that he be her first   
    vampiric kill.
    "Jared Mason, you're about to be called to order for your crimes in the past."
    She laughed at the picture of two confederate soldiers, one a teenager and the   
    other a middle-aged man.
    Jaera wasn't thinking about how much power a Sabbat must have to live for nearly   
    one hundred years among their sworn enemies, the Camirilla, she was too overjoyed   
    at having found him.  
    
    Three nights a week, Jenny Simon performed at the Shadowspot nightclub. It   
    wasn't the sleazy sort of place most people would associate with a big city nightclub.   
    By the standards of most of the town it wasn't even a true nightclub. After all, high   
    schoolers were allowed in, and the ownership as strict about its rules.
    "You want a strip joint, go to a strip joint," insisted Marcus Karkoff the owner.   
    "You want to watch some talented people perform their acts, or maybe meet   
    somebody, then your in the right place."
    Jenny's act was a sing and dance number performed to one of her own songs,   
    though nobody ever noticed and appreciated that. The men were too busy watching   
    her sleek, ebony twenty-four year old body move, and most of the women were too   
    busy watching their men.
    It wasn't that she was truly great yet at either singing or dancing, it was that she   
    knew how to do more than that. She knew how to express herself on stage and   
    through music, knew how to act according to the audience's mood, and knew what   
    to emphasize and what not to emphasize.
    She couldn't remember when he first arrived at the club, he didn't seem out of the   
    ordinary for the type that came. High school kid wanting a taste of the real   
    nightclubs, invariably they drifted back to the arcade to play what ever the latest   
    game fad was.
    This kid was different though, and he soon revealed himself as a true pick-up   
    artist. He came in alone each time, and always left with some attractive young girl.   
    A different one everytime it seemed.
    Jenny almost felt disgusted by the thought of another use 'em and lose 'em   
    character roaming the streets, but he was a kid yet and he could still change. Jenny   
    never noticed that sometimes the girls never came back, and she never had the   
    chance to learn that the girls that did come back had very little knowledge of what   
    had happened on those particular nights.  
    
    Mina waited for her target, she knew he was coming, an unrefusable invitation had   
    been delivered. Now all that remained was to remove Lt. Rohan.
    Mina watched from a rooftop as Micheal Rohan pulled up at the factory, as he had   
    been ordered, but nobody was there yet. He waited, and he waited, finally another   
    car pulled up next to him. The driver stopped and exited the car.
    "Michael?" the driver asked. "What are you doing here?" The speaker was Marie   
    Alvarez, a very lovely and talented computer programmer Micheal had fallen for a   
    couple of years back. They were planning to get married early next spring, and   
    there was already a child on the way. His parents would have thrown him out of the   
    family for such a thing, they weren't the most tolerent people in the world about   
    either pre-marital sex or inter-racial marriages.
    Michael felt a stone begin to grow in his chest. "Marie," he started calmly. "Who   
    told you to come here?"
    "I was just on my way home from a job and saw your car..." she looked to the   
    briefcase sitting on Mike's car hood. "Mike, what's going on?"
    "I knew you were cheating on me, bitch!" The yell came from behind them, there   
    was Marie's ex-husband Lawrence Jenson, grasping an automatic pistol in his hand.   
    "Who's the bastard? Some delivery guy?"

  
  
  
Back to [Gift of Sunlight][1]

   [1]: http://members.aol.com/thrythlind/giftsun.html



	2. Opening Moves

Marie and Micheal didn't have any idea what to say, they were stunned and afraid   
    of what looked like might happen. Micheal edged his hand to his own pistol.   
    Lawrence had been more on the edge recently, but it seemed that he had completely   
    snapped. Almost as if he actually believed that he and Marie were still married.
    Above them, Mina moved downstairs to a bottom floor in the near-abandoned   
    building she was using as hiding place. She carefully put the sniper rifle together as   
    she watched the drama unfold.
    "Put your hands up, bastard, don't think I don't know what your doing," Lawrence,   
    gun leading the way, and grabbed Mike's gun out of its holster. "A gun, eh, and   
    what were you going to do with that mister. Shoot pigeons?"
    "I'm on duty," Micheal explained angrily.
    "Is that so?" Lawrence asked. "You're a cop." He knew that, he'd been on Mike's   
    case the entire two-years of his relationship with Marie. In the distance the sound of   
    closing sirens was heard. "You call your friends on me, cop?!" the raging man   
    yelled in Micheal's face. Before he had a chance to answer, Lawrence shot him six   
    times. Three of the bullets passed through the vest he was wearing.
    "Michael!" Marie screamed as her fiancee slumped to the ground. Lawrence   
    turned the gun on her, and was about to shoot, but he then changed his mind when   
    he saw the cops lined up behind him.
    "Back off or I shoot the little whore." Of course if they did back off he'd shoot her   
    anyway, and there was the fact that one of their brethren was lying in the street   
    probably bleeding to death. "I said back off," he growled and his gun hand jerked a   
    little. In time with the movement a shot rang out and took one of the cops in   
    between the eyes. The air was suddenly filled with gunshots as the cops retaliated   
    to what they thought had been an action by their suspect.
    Across the street, in the wreck of a building behind the gunman, Mina smiled as   
    she left to head back home. Maybe Renfield would let her play with Katrina today.  
    
    Carmilla awoke a few hours before sunset screaming from the nightmares of her   
    sleeping period. After she realized her surroundings she realized that she was once   
    again inside the Box. She couldn't remember how long ago she had been put in,   
    two, three days maybe as many as five. She had lost count only He and Lucy knew   
    for sure.
    Carmilla was hungry, but there was nothing to eat in the lightless room. Who   
    knew how long it would be she was let out of this thing.
    The only living things in the room with her were insects, and unlike most people   
    they didn't repulse her, not anymore. After five years with Him she found animals of   
    anykind to be more trustworthy. Then she noticed that the room wasn't totally   
    lightless anymore, a thin beam of sunlight streamed in on the far side of the room. It   
    provided enough light for Carmilla's...
    "Katrina!" she screamed suddenly. "My name is Katrina! Katrina Wujick! I am   
    not Carmilla! I am not Carmilla. I am not Carmilla..." He had almost won a battle   
    at just that moment. She had almost forgotten who she was, just like Lucy and   
    Mina. He had come close to winning many times over the past year. Too many for   
    Katrina's liking.
    She breathed out a sigh and cried herself back to sleep, the tears staining the white   
    t-shirt she wore, the only bright thing she had been allowed, but one more stain   
    hardly mattered one way or the other. Especially with the Hunger calling to her so   
    loudly.  
    
    At ten o'clock in the morning the telephone rang at the apartment of Bregan and   
    Micheal Rohan. Before the first ring had died out, Bregan had the phone to his ear.
    "Hello?"
    "Bregan Rohan?" the voice on the other end asked. He sounded about as caring   
    toward humanity as the Red Talons. No that wasn't accurate. The Red Talons   
    cared about humanity, they just thought that it should be driven to extinction.   
    Bregan doubted if anyone could evoke an emotional response from the faceless man   
    at the other end of the phone.
    "Yes."
    "This is San Francisco Metropolitian Hospital. I'm calling about your brother."   
    Bregan shifted forward in his seat, dreading the news he knew was coming.
    "Yes?"
    "Your brother was shot several times today. Some of the bullets punched through   
    the vest he was wearing. He was treated for gunshot, internal bleeding and cracked   
    ribs. He has not regained conciousness, and it is not known at this time whether he   
    shall survive."
    "Thanks, I'll come right down." The resigned, emotionless expression in Bregan's   
    suddenly gravelly voice surprised even the robot-like speaker on the other end, thus   
    destroying Bregan's theory.
    "Er...Visting hours are from noon to six pm." Then there was a click as the caller   
    hung up. Okay, so he was wrong. The robot was capable of emotions.
    Bregan set down the phone with his suddenly hairy and clawed hand. He looked   
    into the mirror and saw that he had shifted into Glabro form during the   
    conversation. A note to those who knew him about how angry he truly was.
    "I need to see him sooner than that." Bregan stood up out of the chair and walked   
    forward. Suddenly the air rippled around him and he seemed to walk behind a wall   
    that wasn't there. When he'd vanished the air returned to normal, with him gone.
    He appeared in the Umbra a minute later, one of two spirit worlds that shadowed   
    the physical one. He knew the approximate direction of the hospital and he began   
    to head in that direction. Bregan knew a Silent Strider with a theory that he wanted   
    to test. Bregan hoped to Gaia that he was right.
    About an hour later, with no real problems from the local spirits, Bregan was   
    nearing the hospital. Like almost all of the other buildings in the city, the hospital   
    was covered with what looked to be crsytallized spider webs. Above him on the   
    telephone wires and power lines he watched as innumerable net spiders rushed about   
    to deliver their messages and carry out other errands.
    Ten, even five, years back it would never have been so busy. Now that nearly   
    everybody had a connection to the Internet the traffic had increased. It was one of   
    the increasingly rare instances of the Weaver and the Wyld combining powers to   
    make something wonderous. That was the way the world was supposed to work,   
    before the Wyrm and the Weaver went insane.
    Bregan didn't have time for theology though. He entered the umbral shadow of   
    the hospital cautiously. All kinds of people came to hospitals and they were often   
    crowded. As a result numerous spirits also converged on such places. Banes found   
    much here to ply their trade of corruption and suffering. Despite this, it was rare   
    that a truly dangerous infestation could be found in a such a place of good will.
    At least he was safe from the restless souls of dead men and women, they dwelled   
    in the Underworld, a seperate, darker version of the Umbra. Few Garou traveled   
    there, those that did rarely spoke of what they found. Bregan sometimes heard the   
    wraiths' voices speaking as he heard those of the Umbral spirits. His uncle told him   
    that this was a gift most theurge did not possess and should be cherished. Bregan   
    thought it was a damnable curse.
    He found his brother's room quickly, not encountering even a single Bane or other   
    hostile spirit. Entering the room, he found that his friend's theory held some truth.   
    Their was his brother's umbral shadow lying on the bed, but unlike the shadows of   
    most people, this one was aware of the room around it.
    "Bregan?" the shadow asked. Bregan nodded his head. "Good to see you." The   
    shadow sat up then. "Where is this place?"
    "The Umbra." At seeing Micheal's puzzled look he clarified. "The spirit world."
    "Then I'm dead," Micheal's shadow stated. Bregan's response took him by   
    surprise.
    "No, if you were dead you would be either in the Underworld or else you'd be   
    where ever it is humans without unfinished buisness go. Either way you'd be   
    beyond my power to find you. At least that's how Dreamwalker explained it to me."
    "The short term is I'm still alive," the shadow looked over his brother. "I assume   
    you came to discuss my note."
    "The thought had crossed my mind." Micheal gestured for him to continue.   
    "What the hell were you thinking Mike? They changed the meeting place and you   
    go along with it! You're going to be a father, Micheal and you can't..." Micheal   
    was laughing. "There's nothing fuckin' funny about this Mike."
    "Are you listening to yourself?" he asked. Bregan paused, then his eyes widened a   
    little.
    "I sound like you! Oh, man, look what you're doing to me." They chuckled a little   
    at the idea.
    "They mentioned Marie." It was short, simple and to the point. Bregan nodded   
    understanding as he looked to his future sister-in-law's umbral shadow, firmly   
    attached to her body, and unaware of spirit world around it.
    "I'll get the guy Mike, you just rest, not that you have much choice. As for   
    security."
    "I think Lieutenant Jacobs could help in that regard," Micheal suggested.
    "I'll have to see him when he gets off then." Bregan looked about the room as if   
    searching for something, his gaze immeadiatly settled on the window.
    The spirit he was about to bind was usually something only Glass Walkers toyed   
    with. As Micheal's shadow watched Bregan prepared the talismans he had   
    dedicated to himself to be used in ceremony. Bregan then began chanting in Celtic   
    and dancing about the room to the amazement of his brother's shadow.
    The window of the room began to shake and warp as the dance continued,   
    resisting whatever sort of ritual Bregan was performing. By the end of the   
    ceremony, Bregan had triumphed despite the alien nature of the glass elemental.   
    Now he had to face it down to truly bind it. His willpower matched with that of the   
    elemental's.
    "Guard my brother's spirit and body from attack until he is again healthy. Inform me of any major event."
    _That could be a long time, do you have the power to keep me bound that long?   
    _It wasn't so much a voice as it was a feeling. Something that emanated from the glassy  
     humanoid form before him.
    "I'll worry about that when the subject turns up."
    _You are barely more than a cub, Fianna._
    "And you are meerly a jaggling." It was a game between binder and spirit, to   
    admit weakness was to lose.
    _Indeed, until the question is answered then._ The creature warped back into a   
    window.
    "See you later, Mike." Bregan waved buy to his brother, and walked out of the   
    room. On the stairwell he stepped sideways back into the physical world, he then   
    walked back down the hallway to Mike's room for a more official visit.  
    
    Jaera wasn't getting anywhere. Investigation had never been her strong point. She   
    had shown that picture of Jared Mason about many of the nightclubs in town.   
    Nobody had seen him in any of those places. Now she was about to show another   
    person the picture, a remake of a picture over one hundred years old. She always   
    claimed that the Confederate uniform was some sort of Halloween costume.
    "Yeah, I've seen him before," Jenny said. Jaera blinked, surprised by the words.
    "You have?"
    "Yeah, he's always at the Shadowspot nightclub, usually after dark. Always   
    leaving with a different girl each time." She paused a moment and scrunched up   
    her forehead in thought. "No, that's not right, there are two different girls that he   
    sometimes comes in with. A blonde and an Indian, you know, the Asian kind, but   
    they don't come often, usually it's just him."
    "Thank you, you've been a lot of help," Jaera commented as she got up to leave.
    "No problem, talk to you later."
    Jaera never noticed the man try to follow her, but she lost him anyway, being like a   
    needle in a haystack to normal people.
    The man waited patiently outside the bar, and when Jenny Simon walked out of   
    the bar he was ready for her. If he couldn't catch the searcher, he'd bring the source   
    of information. He dragged the unconcious girl to his car, to be driven to Varney's   
    apartment. From there the ghoul took her to Renfield's haven.  
    
    Lieutenant Karl Jacobs walked confidantly to his car from the police station, a little   
    more money in his account than the previous day. It was such an easy task to   
    perform when one considered the money. Not to mention that strange red drug that   
    seemed to bring Jacobs some measure of his lost youth. He couldn't remember   
    exactly how he had come to the drug-lord's payroll, and he didn't care much either.
    He sat down into his car and turned the engine casually. He pulled the car out of   
    the police station parking lot and into traffic. Traffic was very light for some   
    reason, and continued to thin out as he proceeded along towards his home.
    He was nearly a block from his street when he first felt the gun barrel against the   
    back of his neck. There was not a single car in sight. The crooked cop looked   
    nervously into the rear view mirror and saw Bregan Rohan sitting behind him.
    "Hello, lieutenant, your gun please." the young man said, Jacobs very slowly   
    removed his service pistol. "I believe we need to talk about how my brother ended   
    up where he did. Take the highway out of town."
    "Your brother got careless," the nervous man said to the seated figure in back seat.   
    "He should have called for back up."
    "He did," Bregan assured him. "He talked to you, and you sent him off without   
    letting him speak."
    "That's ridiculous," Jacobs claimed. "You're only making trouble for your self,   
    Bregan."
    "I already have trouble, sir," Bregan smiled, twisting the title into an insult. "And   
    I have witnesses to prove your lie."
    "Who are these witnesses?" Karl Jacobs asked quickly, he was sweating now.   
    They left the city behind and entered the wilds just beyond.
    "That is not important, Lieutenant. What is important is the question who paid   
    you the twenty thousand in your account?"
    "I don't have one thousand in my account, much less twenty," Jacobs began.
    "Yes, you do, under the name Jacob Karr," Bregan shook his head and tsked at the   
    crooked cop. "Somewhat unimaginative if you ask me."
    "I am willing to forget this," Jacobs began to say. He couldn't seem to bring   
    himself to betray his employer, there had to be another way out of this.
    "Don't worry about it," Bregan told him. Outside, the sun began to go down, he   
    would have some cover fairly soon. "The evidence is already being delivered, I just   
    want to know who paid you, and where I can find him."
    "You don't have anything, else I would already be in custody." He was confidant   
    now. "Let me go now, and I'll forget this little incident." His passenger had ceased   
    paying attention and begun looking out the car windows. "There's no way out of   
    this. You should have planned this a little better."
    "Stop here," Bregan comanded. It was now totally dark and they were at least ten   
    miles beyond the city limits. Residences were few and far between, and at this time   
    of night virtually no one was about. "Get out of the car."
    "You're going to shoot me," Jacobs almost laughed as he exited the car. "They'll   
    easily trace it back to you, it's almost worth dying to have you given a life sentence."
    "All I was going to do was talk to you," Bregan left the car slowly, he appeared   
    larger for some reason, and he had left the gun in the car. "I wasn't even going to   
    accuse you." The young man smiled, revealing sharp teeth. "That was before I   
    smelled the vampire on you, then it became tell me or die. Now, ghoul, run and die,   
    or die where you stand. It makes no difference to me."
    "Vampires are fiction, boy, don't you know that?" Jacobs was backing away now,   
    despite his confidant words. Bregan was obviously a little off his rocker, and not to   
    be negotiated with. Jacobs was confidant of his ability to beat him in melee, which it   
    looked like it was going to come to.
    "Fiction, just like werewolves." As Bregan completed his words, he suddenly   
    grew larger and then smaller again, taking the form of a great wolf. Now all his   
    words came out as growls and barks.
    Jacobs ran backwards a few steps, before turning around and sprinting full out   
    away from the insane thing he had just seen. He could hear the wolf's pounding feet   
    behind him as it loped after him.
    "Dream!" he shouted to himself. "It has to be a dream!" Something huge vaulted   
    over his head and landed in front of him. A huge man-wolf that looked like it could   
    easily weigh in at a lean five hundred pounds.
    "If dream, you 'wake now," the thing growled at the lieutenant.
    Normal humans would have been driven temporarily insane by the Crinos form of a   
    Garou, but Jacobs was no longer completely human. He had been given samples of   
    Renfield's blood in the form of an injection for the past few months. His wits were   
    unaffected by any form of supernatural hindrance, of course none was really needed.
    Jacobs screamed as the Garou's claw descended towards him. The screams did not   
    last very long. The next morning the news would be full of the tradegy, a wild dog   
    killing a respected lieutenant in the police force.  
    
    Dr. Emily Grange awoke from her daysleep to the sound of her phone ringing.
    One. Two. Pause. One. Two. Pause. One. Two. Pause.
    Her answering machine had been set for three rings, obviously somebody wanted   
    to talk to her directly. She moved swiftly to exit the fortified basement that served   
    as her haven. The phone had barely finished its latest one, two cycle as she reached   
    it. Unsurprisingly, her caller ID named the caller as a pay phone. She lifted the   
    phone to her ear in an irritated and sudden motion.
    "Who is this?" she asked. "And what's so important that I have to come home to a   
    ringing phone?"
    "Temper, Doc," a deep voice advised calmly. Emily Grange's anger vanished like a   
    vapor. "If I were a snake, I would have bitten you for that response." Grange's   
    blood would have chilled if it weren't cold already.
    "What do you want?" she asked cautiously.
    "I'm a colleauge of yours. In a fashion," the voice was still calm. "It seems I could   
    use your assistance with a matter. Maybe we could meet at your office, to discuss   
    matters." Grange calmed down a little, this was territory she knew. Twenty   
    minutes later she was walking into her office to find a tall man with dark hair sitting   
    in her chair.
    "What is this case you were wanting to discuss with me?" she asked the man   
    before her, and it was a man. She could almost see the heat of his living blood   
    emanating from his body, The eyes, however spoke of great age despite the thirty   
    year-old body. The man was obviously a ghoul, somebody's servant out doing the   
    master's dirty work.
    "A police officer was shot today, isn't it tragic." Mock pity virtually oozed over   
    each word.
    "Yes," she agreed. "It always is. How did this happen?"
    "It seems he was shot at close range by a large pistol," the man said sorrowfully,   
    emphasizing the phrases close range and large pistol. "A comprehensive   
    examination will reveal nothing more, but this man was a friend of mine. I want to   
    be sure that he is cremated as per his wishes."
    "A simple procedure," Emily agreed. "And for this favor then you give me what?"
    ""Why, I should say that would be obvious." The man had no accent, as if he had   
    carefully erased it.
    "I want to hear it in plain terms," Grange insisted.
    "My share of this deal involves keeping the Camarilla blissfully unaware of your   
    dealings with the Setites."
    "Supposing I seek the Setites' aid in dealing with you." She did not fear the man,   
    ghoulish blood aside.
    "Don't bother, I've already spoken with Jean-Claude," The lifeless smile touched   
    the ghoul's face again. "The Setites go to so much trouble to hide their hearts, it   
    would be a shame if no one ever bothered to look for them."
    "You have his heart?" Emily Grange faltered a moment, could Jean-Claude   
    possibly be as powerful a Setite as that. To remove the heart from his body?
    "It took a good deal of time and money," the ghoul admitted. "But yes we have   
    the snake's heart."
    "I guess we have a deal then," Dr. Emily Grange spoke, finally, defeated.
    "I thought we might." The man made as if to leave, and then turned to dig the   
    point a little further in. "The Followers of Set are, by most opinions, the most hated   
    of your kind. The Sabbat fear them, the Inconnu despises them, and the Camarilla,   
    seems to have a mix of the two emotions. It wouldn't do for your acquaintances   
    with them known, now would it." He then walked calmly to the door, confidant in   
    his safety.
    "One thing first," Grange demanded as he reached the door. The man stopped and   
    turned around, with an annoyed look on his face. This ghoul was exceptionally   
    arrogant considering the one-sided nature of a conflict between them. "Who's your   
    master?"
    "My master is long dead, girl," he said without any hint of emotion. "Longer dead   
    than you've been alive." The ghoul then left without any more notice for the   
    vampire behind him.

  
  
  
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	3. Innocent Blood

Jared Mason, a.k.a. Renfield awoke to hear the voices of his bodyguard and   
    administrator discussing the day's news. They were at least two rooms away, but he   
    could hear them quite clearly. Even further away he heard the muffled scream as   
    Carmilla once again awoke from her nightmares. He smiled; this abandoned   
    mansion was perfect for his needs.
    "Not as good as we might have hoped, but it will have to do until we have some   
    idea of the security around his room." The voice was Varney's, Renfield's tall, thin   
    and somewhat older and wiser adminastrator.
    "Mina should have made sure the job was done before she left," protested Lucy.   
    The slurred quality of her words telling Renfield that she was drunk.
    Most drug-lords wouldn't be happy about a drunk bodyguard, but Renfield was   
    unconcerned. It was not known that he was the real person in charge for one thing,   
    and another was the fact that Lucy's sixteen year-old body just didn't look as   
    dangerous as it truly was. Even drunk, she was a better bodyguard than most.   
    Besides, he liked it when the blood was tainted by something, maybe he wouldn't go   
    hunting tonight.
    "The other unfortunate police officer's body?" Renfield asked his administrator.
    "Dr. Emily Grange has been informed of the details," assured Varney. Renfield   
    didn't like that idea.
    "I like to keep my involvement with the Camarilla to a minimum, Varney,"   
    Renfield said quietly. "And my involvement with the Followers of Set even less."
    "Dr. Grange believes me to be a rogue ghoul," Varney insisted. "She is unaware   
    of your existence." Renfield looked doubtful, but Varney had never failed him   
    before.
    "One problem taken care of, then," Renfield suggested. "Fo' the moment anyway."
    "And another one formed." Renfield leveled a cockeyed stare at Varney. "A   
    woman has been asking about you, waving around old photos from your living era."   
    Varney proceeded to describe the reported woman's european features. "One of our   
    lesser dealers said that someone recognized your picture and told the woman she'd   
    seen you at the Shadowspot nightclub. A young black lady." Varney was definately   
    predjudiced, not tolerating anything that wasn't his race and gender. Renfield's girls   
    were almost an exception to this rule, they served his master after all. He did wish   
    that Renfield were more particular about his choices when selecting "dates." As far   
    as the vampire was concerned, however, one girl was as good as any other, as long   
    as they were innocent to begin with.
    "Why didn't he follow her?" Renfield asked angrily.
    "She just vanished. Nobody noticed her longer than she wished them to, the only   
    reason our man saw her was that he heard your name spoken. I have standing   
    orders to listen for the names Jared Mason and Nathan Coleridge. After the lady   
    she was talking to finished her story the woman left the bar. Nobody remembers   
    seeing her come out, but our man saw her go through the door."
    "At what time did this happen," he asked after some brief thought.
    "Daylight."
    "Magi hunting vampires?" Lucy asked.
    "Or mebee an Outlander or Blue Blood," Renfield thought aloud, referring to the   
    two clans of Kindred best known for the power to survive daylight. The shape-  
    changing Gangrel, and the aristocratic Ventrue, to be specific.
    "Very powerful ghoul," They shivered at that thought. Ghoul were mere shadows   
    of the vampire who gave him blood. Only old ghouls with older masters or those   
    that entered into their own mystical studies, such as Varney, possessed powers   
    beyond a superhuman physique and immortality.
    "Hmm," Renfield was annoyed. "It's time to feed Carmilla anyway, bring the   
    informant to me unharmed. As for the mystery woman we'll wait for her to show   
    and see what happens." Varney smiled now.
    "We already have the informant, sir,"
    "I hope this one's an innocent," said Mina as she walked into the room. "It will be   
    entertaining to see that self-rightous bitch frenzy on someone who doesn't deserve   
    it. She cared less about that hit man than she did about the cat last time."
    "Shall we introduce our captive to Miss Carmilla, sir?" Varney asked.
    Renfield's seventeen year old face cracked into a feral smile revealing two long   
    sharp canines as he stared into the thirty-four year old face of his oldest servant.
    "Let's."  
    
    Jaera prepared for the coming battle in meditation, uniting her physical being with   
    her avatar. Her avatar, her soul, screamed for the hunt to begin in earnest. It   
    thirsted to swoop upon her prey like the hawk it resembled. Jaera concentrated on   
    the abilities of the hawk, on the speed, accuracy and the ripping talons. Her body   
    began to respond to her thoughts as the spark of life within her and her knowledge   
    of the reality behind the patterns of life worked to perform her will.
    She came out of the meditation in tune with her avatar, physically and mentally.   
    She would rend her enemy with her talons, soon, it would all happen very soon.   
    Then her sister would have her revenge. The changes she had worked on her body   
    reversed. She knew she could do it now, that was all she needed to know.
    Jaera watched as her talons reformed into hands, and felt her feathers once again   
    become hair. She saw the accuracy of her vision diminishing as her eyes reverted to   
    normal. Of course this was her sanctum, here it was her view of reality that ruled.   
    The view that anything can be accomplished by mastering the philosophies of Do.   
    Outside her apartment the Technomancy ruled, vulgar magick would be difficult   
    and, perhaps, dangerous to perform.  
    
    Jenny watched the door open from her position. She didn't know why she had   
    been brought here. She didn't realize that her words about one stranger to another   
    stranger had doomed her. All she knew was that one of those who had brought her   
    to this horrible building was opening the door. She was ready to spring upon   
    whoever it was and bring him down with the table leg she had found. She hesitated   
    when she saw the two teenagers followed by a tall thin man. She recognized the   
    teenagers as the kid she was asked about earlier and one of his repeat dates.
    By the time she remembered to make a break for it, the other teenager, a blonde   
    girl who seemed a year younger than the boy, took the table leg from her with speed   
    and strength that Jenny had never witnessed before in anything human. Though she   
    was only twenty-four years old, and she assumed that their were things that she had   
    never encountered before. She looked up from her position on the floor were she   
    had fallen into the handsome face of the heavy-metal punk before her.
    "Ah heah that ye bin blabbin' abou' me to someone," the youth said in an difficult   
    to decipher Southern accent. "Allow me t' intro-duce meself to ye, ah'm Renfield."
    "As in Dracula's insane helper?" Jenny asked nervously.
    "Nah, I ain't no limey, and I ain't no servant. This lady heah, who ah believe has   
    yor in-ten-ded weapon, is Lucy. The fella behind her is my overseer, Varney." Now   
    that was a name she had heard.
    "You're the drug-lord," she accused Varney nervously. She was thinking that   
    maybe she had put some cop on his kid's trail.
    "Wrong," The black-haired man indicated Renfield. "He's the drug-lord." Jenny   
    rocked back in confusion and made a nervous study of the teenager before her.
    "But he's just a kid," she protested.
    "He's much older than he looks," insisted Varney.
    Meanwhile Renfield had been looking her over. Not just her dark, creamy skin,   
    long, black, curly hair and the dancer's physique. No, he looked beyond that to the   
    aura that surrounded her, that revealed her innocence.
    "My what a tasty looking dish you are. Mebee I should keep you instead of kill   
    you. What do you think of that?" He smiled letting, her digest the information, but   
    he answered himself before she could. "Either way, you must meet Carmilla before   
    we decide your fate, or rather she does, but first you must be prepared. Mina."
    A dark Asian-European girl of about the same age as Renfield came in then   
    wielding a scalpel. The girl's eyes gleamed with virtually no humanity as she   
    approached her target. Jenny tried to back away from the shimmering blade, but   
    Renfield's eyes fixed her in place as surely as chains would.
    Then Mina used her scalpel to cut away Jenny's clothing and undergarments. Then   
    the scalpel cut flesh, causing no real damage, but causing real pain. The neck, the   
    thighs, near the wrists, the breasts all the sensitive and vital areas sported small cuts   
    near them that bled freely by the time the ghoul was finished.
    When she was done, Mina licked some of the blood off of Jenny's breast and then   
    off of her scalpel.
    "Say hello to Carmilla for me," Mina called sweetly as Jenny was escorted to the   
    Box. Of course Jenny didn't know it was called that, all she knew was that they   
    were approaching a door barred from the outside and being hammered on from the   
    inside.
    "Such a waist of energy," Renfield noted, shaking his head. "Back away from the   
    door, Carmilla," he commanded. The hammering stopped abruptly.
    "My name is Katrina!" The voice yelling from inside the room sounded to be the   
    youngest of them all. Renfield laughed at the defiance as Varney opened the door   
    and he pushed the terrified Jenny into the room and shut the door again. The   
    banging on the door started again almost immeadiatly with even greater strength.
    "Let me out! Please let me out! Don't leave me in here with her!" Carmilla   
    sounded desperate and pleading, Renfield was pleased.
    "Who are you?" There was a whisper, he understood it, but it wasn't loud enough   
    for him. "What? I can't hear you."
    "I SAID MY NAME IS CARMILLA YOU BASTARD!" she screamed. "Let me   
    out of here, now."
    "No," he said simply.
    "But..." she started to protest from behind the door.
    "I'll tell ye what, since ye've accepted yor name Ah'll leave the light on for you.   
    Ow's that."
    "NO Ple-ee-ease! NO!"
    "Talk to ye later then." Renfield flicked a switch and the crack under the door   
    suddenly revealed light and shadow where Carmilla was standing. Then he and his   
    servants left. A ways down the hall he suggested. "Go get Mina, I want to watch   
    this on the secruity camera."  
    
    Jenny backed away from the hysterical girl. Carmilla/Katrina had rushed past her   
    and tried to get out before the door had closed, but hadn't been fast enough. Jenny   
    decided that she must be crazy, probably driven there by those human monsters   
    outside.
    Katrina wasn't stripped like Jenny had been, she was wearing a white t-shirt with   
    red stains spotted over it, and pair of black jeans. She looked like one of those   
    people in those eastern European countries you see on television news. Katrina,   
    looked about as healthy as them, too. She was small and thin with a very pale face,   
    her black hair was stringy and tangled. It wouldn't take much to make her look   
    lovely, underneath it all. Like the other two girls, she had matured early though   
    their was still no doubt as to her age. Jenny made the deduction that they had been   
    chosen based on appearances, which was part of the truth.
    Katrina continued to pound on the door for about two minutes before sliding to   
    the ground sobbing and repeating "no" over and over again.
    The cell, for that's what it was, was a large bedroom. The furniture was sparse and   
    made out of metal. Most of it was twisted and bent too, suggesting prisoners other   
    than the girl of fifteen, maybe seventeen, years it held now.
    "Why did they kidnap you," Jenny asked hoping to start up a conversation for no   
    real, logical reason. She needed to do something to keep her mind off the human   
    monsters outside and the fact that she would probably never see her family or   
    friends again.
    The girl didn't answer, merely sobbed and weakly pounded on the door. Her face   
    was now turned away from Jenny as if to try to ignore her. Jenny moved forward   
    and touched the girl on the shoulder, meaning to turn her around to face her.
    "No! Stay away from me!" screeched Katrina when she felt Jenny's hand touch   
    her. Her faced whirled to face the naked, bleeding woman. Jenny recoiled, red   
    tears streamed down the girls face to add to the stains on the floor and the t-shirt.   
    Her skin was more pale than almost anybody Jenny had ever seen in her life, but   
    worst was the pair of fangs Katrina sported. Jenny screamed.
    "You can't be, you don't exist," Jenny declared to Katrina.
    "Keep away from me!" Katrina yelled. "Stay away from me!"
    Jenny didn't hear her; at least she didn't understand her. She was too much in   
    shock to notice anything. Katrina, on the other hand was quickly losing her battle   
    with the Beast. Already the fangs were out, and the blood was still in the room, she   
    was still starved of blood. The Beast was rising, and slowly Katrina rose with it.
    Then she paused and cried out before charging at a terrified Jenny, all thoughts   
    other than blood evicted from her mind. Terrified as she was Jenny dodged out of   
    the way of the first charge. Katrina was starved and, as a result, weak. The chase   
    about the large room lasted a good minute before Katrina finally tackled her prey   
    and bit sharply into her throat.
    Suddenly Jenny forgot her fear and pain, and felt only the ecstacy from Katrina's   
    bite. Jenny had never felt anything like this, no mortal had without a Kiss from a   
    vampire, it was pure, untarnished ecstacy. Beneath this was anger and sorrow, she   
    would never leave a mark on this world now. All because she had told a stranger   
    about another stranger. Now there was nothing for her to do, for the moment   
    Katrina's fangs had pierced her skin, all ability to resist had vanished. Human minds   
    weren't meant for the surging emotions that vampires expierenced.
    The Beast, as Katrina had been told it was called, was in control for the moment,   
    and it wanted to drag as much pleasure out of this as possible. Thus, what could   
    last as short a time as half a minute lasted for five full minutes. Katrina stayed   
    latched to the unfortunate woman the entire time.
    Only after the hunger was sated did instinct let go and intellect take over. It was at   
    this point that Katrina felt the guilt, even greater than when she had killed the hit   
    man, for he deserved to die. This girl did not, who knew what would have been   
    ahead of her but for the interference of a petty, cruel, and vampric adolescent.
    Above her the intercom crackled to life, out of the range she could jump.
    "Have a nice meal?" Renfield asked.
    "DAMN YOU TO HELL RENFIELD!" Katrina yelled.
    "If you want her back all you have to do is feed her."
    "NEVER!"
    "Suit yourself." The intercom clicked back off leaving Katrina alone with her guilt.
    

  
  
  
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	4. Jenny's Gambit

Jenny came to herself on the floor of the room she had been thrown into.   
    Everything was dark and blurry; she couldn't see a thing clearly. She could identify   
    the huddled mass in the corner as something humanoid, ditto the reclining figure in   
    the center of the room. There were still no windows or furniture, just the room.
    Who they were she could not say definately, she reached up and tried to remove   
    whatever covered her face. She found that her hand's motion was restrained, she   
    couldn't move it very well. Gripping the thing that covered herself proved   
    impossible. Maybe this was something of that vampire's making. A web to hold   
    Jenny until she was hungry again, but why not just kill her?
    A figure moved silently from out of the wall. Jenny tried to jump back, but found   
    herself unable. The blurry figure held out a knife as he approached her.
    "Quiet, girl," the figure said in a distorted but definately male voice. "The   
    Heirarchy will be here soon; not that you know who the Heirarchy is of course."   
    The man cut at something, and suddenly the blurry covering slipped off of Jenny.   
    She could now identify the reclining figure as her own body, already decaying and   
    rotten to her new found senses.
    The huddled mass in a corner was the vampire, of course, rocking back and forth   
    and crying out tears of blood.
    "They caught one of the newly dead here only recently," the man continued. He   
    was wearing a coonskin cap and a suit of hand-tanned leathers, like something from   
    a western. "Foolish tyrants almost allowed the man's shadow to devour him, and   
    leave him a spectre."
    "I'm dead?" she asked. Everything about her seemed to be decaying, except the   
    vampire. The vampire merely looked the same fifteen or sixteen she had before, but   
    now there was something about her that gave the impression of something stale or   
    stretched.
    "Yes, you're dead," the man answered. "Now let's move before the Heirarchy   
    comes to induct you to the forges." Jenny didn't have time for a response, the man   
    merely grabbed her and shoved her through the outer wall. Jenny felt disconnected   
    for a moment as she passed through the wall into the outside. The man followed   
    behind her, moving through the wall as if it weren't there. "Move, into the   
    surrounding woods, they won't look there."
    Jenny hesitated a moment, considering the way her life had been so unfairly   
    removed from her. It would have been considerate if there was at least something   
    worth going to on the other side.
    "You can settle your affairs with the brat later, a death is expected, someone will   
    be here soon to collect you." The man passed her into the woods and Jenny   
    followed swiftly and gracefully behind him. When they stopped she could just   
    barely make out the mansion below them.
    Of course, everything looked desolate to her now. Trees appeared hollow and   
    rotting, stones were cracked and dusty. Animals all appeared to greater or lesser   
    degrees as walking corpses.
    Car lights seemed to appear at the old mansion they had fled.
    "Is that them?" she asked her apparent rescuer.
    "Yes, that's them," the man answered. He had an odd accent, almost Southern, but   
    not quite. "As bad a lot as them that were in Texas, back in my day. Worse, in   
    fact."
    "What are they here for?" she asked, cautiously.
    "To either convince you to join them, or to take you to the forges and turn you   
    into currency, or weapons," the man spoke non-chalantly. "I have to go, other   
    buisness that needs doing."
    "So why'd you stop to help me?"
    "I was hiding out there when they brought you in," he smiled a little. "Sort of   
    ruined my hideout. I wasn't here for the other, and we can't let them win any   
    battles, not even small ones."
    "What can I do?" She paused, "to affect the living."
    "You'll have to find that out for yourself girl. Talk to the guilds or experiment   
    yourself. We're all different, and I have affairs elsewhere to put in order. The   
    Heirarchy won't wait around long, and that place makes good cover if no one's   
    about to die. " The man just vanished then. Jenny flinched a little and began to   
    walk back to the mansion, where the car-lights were already fading away.
    "Self-experimentation then," she told herself. "No time for anything else." She   
    had always relied on herself anyway.  
    
    "Well, now that that's over with," declared Renfield. "I believe that it is time to do   
    some hunting." He rose from his chair and took Lucy's hand as he left the chamber   
    to head downstairs for his motorcycle. "I believe that the Shadowspot would make   
    a good hunting ground, what do you think love?"
    "A freakin' good hunting ground, sir," answered Lucy.
    "Varney, back to buisness. Mina, keep an eye on Carmilla for us. Thanks."
    Then they were gone. Mina smiled as she watched them drive away, Varney in his   
    Buick and Lucy and Renfield on a Harley. 'Sure,' she thought. 'I'll keep on eye your   
    precious little Carmilla.' Her eyes drifted to cabinet containing various tools:   
    scalpels, drills, vises, salt, and, of course wooden stakes. After 17 years as a   
    follower of Renfield, Mina had developed quite a few tricks for causing pain, and   
    she loved to use them.
    Jenny had returned in time to see everybody leave on the junk heaps she saw their   
    vehicles to be. Inside the house she found only Mina, appearing over thirty in this   
    new world of Jenny's. She recognized the ghoul nonetheless, how could she not   
    recognize the torturer. Even if her corpse was a thousand years old.
    Jenny through herself Mina, the air around her in the Shadowlands virtually   
    brimming with rage.
    A whisper of cold wind seemed to pass through Mina then and one of her bottles   
    toppled over and fell to the ground with a crash. Mina looked with annoyance at   
    the mess.
    Jenny Simon was overjoyed; she had discovered the first of her powers. Next time   
    she would strike the bitch solid, instead of passing through.  
    
    Katrina could hear Mina walking downstairs. Renfield and Lucy were away, for   
    two or three hours now, and there was no reason she couldn't practice her skills on   
    the rather reluctant vampire. For a brief moment Katrina considered escape, but the   
    thought ended as soon as it entered and she resigned herself to a night of suffering.
    Why care about her? Jenny's spirit heard. She looked around to see if anybody   
    was with her, but found nothing. She dismissed it and turned to the problem at   
    hand. This girl couldn't seem to hear her, no matter what. Finally, she just lost her   
    patience and roared out in frustration.
    _"Run!"_ whispered a voice in Katrina's ear. There was nobody nearby, was she   
    hearing voices now? Jenny noticed the change and excitedly continued.
    _"Break through the window! Run away!"_ All that work and energy for a few   
    whispered words.
    "Its boarded, I can't break it down." The footsteps were coming up from the   
    second floor now.
    Jenny struggled to think of a way to convince the girl to run. Before she had   
    always stirred people with her singing and dancing, but she doubted whether she   
    would be able to do such with merely a whisper.
    Still it was worth a try. Jenny thought back over the songs she knew or had   
    written, looking for a song of hope and determination. She focused all her heart   
    into the performance, dancing even when she knew Katrina could not see her. All   
    the other powers she had used had manifested while she was in an extreme state of   
    emotion. She was counting on that, emotion was something she knew about.
    The sluggishly swirling colors around Katrina sped up tremendously. Jenny   
    watched entranced as red swirled into dominance over gray and orange, and a   
    stream of yellow worked its way in the field. All the colors were pale and subdued,   
    but so was everything else in this new world.
    _"You're a vampire, now. Use it."_ Jenny finished with that comment,   
    hoping it would serve to funnel the invoked emotions into something productive.   
    Of course she had no real idea of what a vampire could do other than the film   
    mythos every American knows.
    "But I'll have to come back, he binded me to him." The voice was silent, she had   
    said all she really needed to, and even these small methods of contacting the living   
    were exhausting.
    Katrina waited for a response, receiving none. Had she ever tried escaping after   
    she had fed? She didn't believe so, she was usually staked soon afterward. No, all   
    her failed escapes had been made after torture sessions when they thought her too   
    weak. Maybe she could break the boards and escape. Even if she could, how long   
    would it last? She was bound to Renfield by his blood, taken over many days when   
    only three days would have been sufficient. How strong was the bond truly, she did   
    not know.
    All these thoughts faded away with desperation and fear when she heard Mina   
    calling from the hallway outside. If not for the words of the mysterious voice she   
    would still have resigned herself to torture, but there was something new in the mix,   
    something she could only vaguely identify as hope.
    "Guess what I've got for you, love." There's a pause and then, "What no guess?   
    Why then I'll have to tell you. Its a stake, a nice sharp wooden stake. After all we   
    know how you feel about stakes, don't we love."
    Katrina cried in blind fear and ran into the wall facing outside. The brick held, but   
    some of them cracked.
    "I knew you'd appreciate it." Mina was at the door now unbarring it and preparing   
    to unlock the deadbolts. Katrina gave another cry, frenzying in fear at the thought   
    of facing a stake. The blood she had just fed on raced through her system as she ran   
    into the window to the left of the wall she had hit. For a moment it looked as   
    though the boards would hold and all of Katrina's efforts would have been for not.
    Then they snapped, spilling her out into the countryside. Katrina was up and   
    running towards the city proper as Mina cursed at her from above. Mina rushed   
    downstairs to the remaining car, but it wouldn't start. Looking under the hood she   
    found the problem: no battery. She tripped over it as she was backing up.
    Renfield was not going to appreciate this.  
    
    The only thing that stopped Katrina's flight was the tingle of Hunger she felt after   
    traveling three miles at a near sprint. She wiped the sweat off of her brow and then   
    recoiled to see blood on her hand. Had she recieved an injury severe enough   
    jumping out the window that it hadn't healed yet? Or did she sweat blood as she   
    drank and cried it? A quick check proved the latter, as no wounds could be found   
    by her hands.
    It was late at night, in three short hours the sun would be upon her. She needed   
    shelter, something she hadn't used before. Fortunately, there was plenty to be had in   
    this area, a deserted industrial complex. It had once been some sort of factory that   
    had failed and left its rotting carcass behind to scar the land.
    Katrina made a minimal search of the area and found a small office building that   
    would be ideal for purposes. It was a three story, brick affair. Across the street   
    were the remains of a recent crime scene; she could still smell the dried blood even   
    from where she was. The whole thing personalized what she currently thought of   
    the world. Already she could feel the blood inspired loyalty pulling on her to return   
    to Renfield. It was almost imperceptible, but it was there. She had disobeyed her   
    Sire and regnant's wishes, and like the thrall she still was, she began to feel ashamed.   
    How long would it take for that to override her true wishes?
    More importantly to her, how long would it be before she needed to feed again?   
    How long before another person must die to slake the Beast's...to slake her thirst?
    For the moment she laid these concerns aside as she slipped into her daysleep, her   
    haven as secure as she could make it against probing eyes and burning light.  
    
    "So she escaped," Renfield commented. "She's done it before, the blood bond has   
    always brought her back. It will again." Varney suscpected that some unforseen   
    factor had come into play. Katrina had never before tried for the windows, much   
    less the walls. She had been so involved in trying to remain human that she couldn't   
    see her way out of the Box and waited to be let out in order to escape.
    "If she doesn't come back, then we kill her and I find a new Carmilla." Varney   
    doubted that as well. His master was obsessed with the girl, and would do anything   
    to keep her.  
    
    Bregan couldn't get to the crime scene until late the next day. He was kept busy   
    filling out forms and answering questions. Bregan rankled at being kept back from   
    the investigation, but he knew that this was more necessary than the killing he had   
    his mind set on. This could very well keep Mike alive. Then came his adventure   
    with Lt. Jacobs and a discussion with other members of his pack. They had offered   
    their help in his quest, and he had refused it. There was a vampire involved here   
    somewhere, and as much as he would love to wipe every leech away from Gaia, the   
    garou of San Francisco could not afford a war with them. The vampires held back   
    for the same reasons, neither side wanted their presence revealed to the world at   
    large.
    He pulled up slowly, cautious in case a curious passerby should spot him.
    He couldn't see anybody nearby and shifted into Lupus form. Dedicated clothes   
    following the change, taking the appearance of fur patterns. The grey wolf that was   
    Bregan sniffed the area out, producing a fairly accurate picture of how events had   
    taken place here yesterday.
    It was underneath the smells of gunpowder, his brother, his soon-to-be sister-in-  
    law, her ex-husband, and fifteen cops that Bregan found what it was he had been   
    looking for.
    The scent was faint, a physically young girl or woman that smelled of the blood   
    and fear of others. She had crossed this parking lot and the street beyond to the   
    tumble down office building of a former industrial park. She'd been carrying   
    something plastic, a briefcase containing a rifle maybe? Beneath all of this was a   
    slightly stale and old sensation that spoke of tainted blood. The girl was a vampire's   
    ghoul servant, perhaps this Varney character Mike had mentioned in his note.
    The Garou followed her scent to the office building and traced her steps, up to the   
    roof and back down. The animal scents of all the strays in the building nearly shut it   
    out, but he found it. At a first floor window he smelled gunpowder residue. This is   
    were the second cop, the dead one, had been shot from, he knew it. There was   
    something else in the building as well, but it seemed as if the rats, cats, and birds   
    were going out of their way to hide the scent. It was there, but he couldn't   
    recognize it, for all that it was more recent than the ghoul assassin's scent.
    He decided to search the building, just in case he wasn't smelling things, to   
    paraphrase.  
    
    Jaera saw the report in the paper, she didn't have any modern conviences in her   
    apartment, that would give the Technocracy a foothold on her tiny bubble of reality.   
    She couldn't risk that for minor things like television when she had books, video   
    games when she had Do, or temperature control when she had magick to alter her   
    body to be comfortable at any temperature. It was unneccesary for her, though her   
    guests found the apartment somewhat less than pleasant.
    The article wrote of how Detective Micheal Rohan, now revealed as a member of   
    the investigation into the drug-lord Varney's empire, had been shot by his fiancee's   
    jealous ex-husband while on duty. The ex-husband had then been killed, after he   
    killed another cop. The detective was listed in critical condition at San Francisco   
    Metropolitian Hospital. She had an interest in this Varney, like Micheal, she knew   
    it's connection to vampires in the form of novel's title. Of course it probably wasn't   
    her current quarry, but she could always use the information later.
    The dead cop's body was cremeated immeadiatly following a autopsy by Dr. Emily   
    Grange. Thereby eradicating any possibility that the "facts" of the autopsy would be   
    questioned. Some of the other police officers at the scene thought they had heard a   
    rifle shot rather than a pistol, but chalked it up to stress. The fact only made the   
    press because of the conspiracy theory trend, the media wanted ratings.
    For most people, the entire thing would seem to be a suscpicious circumstance, but   
    on which was easily looked over. Jaera saw in it the kind of "coincidence" that   
    mages were skilled in creating through magick. The kind of thing that could   
    happen, but was unlikely to actually occur. It was too tightly wrapped up to be   
    natural, the fiancee's report that her ex-husband didn't seem to remember they were   
    divorced only heightened the artificial feeling of the event.
    Jaera knew of only one other group who were as skilled as the mages were in   
    causing such coincidences. Maybe they should be called more skilled. After all they   
    couldn't alter reality as mages could. Either way this was exactly the sort of   
    "coincidence" vampires used as well, though they worked through minions rather   
    than directly.
    Maybe Jaera should check out this crime scene before she went to the   
    Shadowspot.  
    
    Jenny had been practicing, there was a splintered tree a mile into the woods that   
    could attest to that fact. This time she would give that little monster, Mina some   
    pain. She walked into the house and searched for the ghoul. It was Mina more than   
    the others that Jenny found repugnant. Looking at her was like looking at a hole in   
    the fabric of reality. An aura of solid black around a thirty year old body.
    Jenny passed the rotting skeleton that was Varney's image as she went. She found   
    Mina with Lisa near the basement where she assume Renfield slept.
    Screaming as she rammed into Mina's small form. The ghoul literally had no idea   
    what hit her, she just crashed to the floor unconcious.  
    
    "What the hell is going on here!" Varney demanded as he entered the room. Mina   
    was sprawled out on the floor unconcious while Lucy had drawn her gun and was   
    waving it around trying to find an enemy.
    "I don't know!" Lucy shouted. "Mina just fuckin' crumpled like something hit   
    her." Mina started to come around then.
    "It's daylight, what vampire attacks during the day?" Mina asked weakly.
    "There are creatures other than vampires in the world," Varney commented, as a   
    teacher to a very young child. As if on cue, the door he had come through caught   
    on fire. They quickly put it out, but the desired effect had been achieved. As they   
    turned from the door they saw a piece of paper drop from mid-air.
    On it was written: "That's enough for now - Jenny Simon."
    "We're being haunted," Lucy said unbelieving. "That women we fed to the traitor   
    is haunting us."
    "Do you think that we have not dealt with ghosts before?" he asked them. "It can't   
    kill our master if we keep a close eye out."
    _"But I can kill you,"_ spoke an ethereal voice seeming to emanate from the   
    entire room while maintaining the qualities of whisper. Then it laughed as it faded   
    out.
    In the Shadowlands Jenny was exhausted.
    In the physical world Varney was not impressed.

  
  
  
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	5. Dreams of Despair and Freedom

Katrina saw her hands before her face. They were stained red with the blood of   
    men and women. Before her was a fountain carved with multiple strong and healthy   
    human figures. Katrina touched her hand to the water and suddenly the figures   
    necks began pouring blood, soon making the fountain as bloody as her hands. The   
    blood seemed to beckon her to it, to dive into it and lose herself and her worries.
    Katrina jumped back in revulsion turning to run away from the fountain. Each step   
    became harder to take as she seemed to get ever closer to the fountain, rather than   
    farther. Ahead of her she saw that she was fast approaching a shadow figure   
    embracing one individual after another.
    As she closed on the figure he saw that the person the thing was embracing was   
    her sister, exactly as she had seemed five years ago. Behind the figure and its victim   
    there was a pile of corpses. Katrina could see her family stacked on top of the pile,   
    only her sister remaining. She looked at the figure's feet and saw Renfield's boots.
    She must save her sister, whatever the cost!
    "Stop!" she demanded, pulling the vampire away from her sister and turning it   
    towards herself. "Leave my sister..." she trailed off as the black haired vampire   
    stared up at her with a monstrous mockery of her face. The doppelganger's   
    laughing and smiling face was dyed red with the blood she had taken from the   
    countless bodies. Katrina could see the hit man's and the poor girl's bodies on the   
    bottom of the pile. Somehow she could see them through the pile now, staring at   
    her with blaming eyes.
    "Would you interrupt my feast?" the...the thing asked her. Katrina let go of the   
    monster and shook her head in denial as she slowly backed up. Then her sister   
    stood up and spoke, fangs bared.
    "You've given me eternal life, Katrina. How should I thank you for that?" Then   
    all the corpses stood up and stared at her either with blank, blaming eyes or bared   
    fangs and cold, hungry gazes.
    "Yes, how should we thank you?" the horde asked of her. Katrina turned away   
    from them all, fountain, corpses, doppelganger and sister and she ran.
    "NO! NO! NO! NO!" she chanted in denial of the things pursuing her.
    Then the fountain was in front of her again, and she was falling and then sinking.   
    She sank into the fountain unable to swim back to the surface. She sank deeper and   
    deeper, never drowning, always in complete awareness of her situation. Forever,   
    sinking, sinking...  
    
    Jaera arrived at the industrial park just in time to hear the scream. She had no idea   
    what to make of it so she choose the safe route. Nobody was nearby, she could use   
    her magick to change slightly. She couldn't enforce a complete transformation yet,   
    but one day she would. That day would be great indeed, but for now she would   
    have to settle for the enhanced vision, dexterity, speed and talons.
    The rote complete, she raced for the office building the cry had come from.  
    
    Somewhere beneath him, Bregan heard a voice chanting one word over and over   
    again with increasing volume and agitation. Then suddenly a scream erupted from   
    the voice, ending the chant. A scream packed with more rage, revulsion and fear   
    than he had ever heard a creature produce. He shifted into his Homid form and   
    made for the source of the sound as quickly as his two-legs would carry him. He   
    came to a door then and heard weeping on the other side.
    Opening the door was easy, it hadn't been locked, it had just warped into a   
    misshaped thing. So it opened with a large creak, and the room's occupant instantly   
    knew that she had company.
    "Stay away," declared the young girl with her back turned to the door. "You don't   
    know what I could do to you. Stay away!" Bregan had a brief glimpse of a pale   
    red-streaked face before she turned her face away again. Bregan ignored her and   
    began walking forward, keeping a ray of sunlight between him and her. Her voice   
    sounded strained and tired, maybe day-time had an effect other than to burn   
    vampires
    "Why do you care to warn me," he asked. "What does it gain you."
    "What do you know, you don't even know me, much less what I am. What   
    knowledge allows you to mock me and my warning?"
    "Knowledge that is my own miss...?" he paused politely. The girl appeared to have   
    to think a moment to come up with the answer. "Katrina Wujick." Bregan blinked.
    "I've heard of you, you disappeared on your way home five years ago, your   
    killers...sucspected killers were convicted..."
    "Am I on Unsolved Mysteries or something then, or maybe they made my life into   
    a movie of the week?" Bregan laid off, this was a vampire he was talking to yes, but   
    apparently not of the normal ilk, or at least what was supposed to be the normal for   
    the undead. "For your life's sake leave, now!"
    "You couldn't get close enough to harm me." He decided to play it straight.   
    "There is sunlight between me and you, and even if it wasn't there, I would lay   
    wagers that I'm more than a match for you."
    "You know what I am!? You know what I am and you stand there and make   
    jokes about it?!?" She had turned around and there was an angry glint in her eyes.
    "No I do not make jokes about it, I'm disobeying one of my people's laws by even   
    talking to you, but you might be of use to me."
    "Might be of use to you? Is my survival to be based on serving others forever?"
    "If you wish, I'll pay you for your help." Katrina appeared to think it over, she   
    really didn't know of what use she might be to this man, except as a killer or some   
    more intimate purpose, but he had plucked a heart string with his offer of payment.   
    Perhaps she could buy a new violin, her old one had been broken when she was   
    kidnapped.
    "No, he'd come for me, and then you'd die. Best to leave me alone."
    "I can defend myself against, whoever it is you mean, though I can guess."
    "What can you do to him?"
    "What can I do? I'll show you." Bregan shifted to wolf form and back, stopping   
    for moments at each individual form, and then returning to his homid form. "I   
    believe that I am quite capable of protecting myself. Katrina stared with awe at him,   
    even now as a vampire she disbelieved many of the other legends. Inspite of her   
    disbelief this here was a werewolf standing before her. A young werewolf, probably   
    no older than she was truly, but he was a werewolf.
    She made up her mind then and there.
    "I want a new violin," she requested quietly. "Then after I help you, you leave me   
    alone here." Her blood tears had dried to her skin and her voice, though still tired,   
    sounded more gentle at the mention of a violin. 'Could vampires feel anything other   
    than bloodlust then?' he asked himself, 'or is this merely a trick.'
    "Fair deal," Bregan scowled, he didn't like dealing with a vampire. Even if she   
    could lead him to his prey, which was far from a guarantee, she was still the undead   
    herself, and thus, of the Wyrm.
    "I still might not accept, I haven't heard what you want me to do."
    "Is your master a drug-lord named Varney," Katrina felt a sudden stab of hope,   
    this creature before her was hunting her sire.
    "No. My sire is Varney's master." With the appearance of actual hope that her sire   
    might be destroyed, the blood bond linking her to him was weakened. Though she   
    didn't notice that. Bregan was taken aback, he hadn't expected someone to be   
    behind Varney on this. "There's a house..." she paused for brief moment, suddenly   
    afraid. "I can't say anymore."
    "Can't, are you sure about that choice of words."
    "I'm bound to him by his blood, I can't reveal anything more. He would know."   
    Bregan was good at solving riddles, and this sounded like a riddle to him. A riddle   
    to which he had an answer.
    "You've already escaped him, what have you to fear of him."
    "He'll come for me, he'll know I've betrayed him and he'll punish me for it," she   
    spoke in shaky whispers. She was full of fear now, where before she had been   
    angry. Bregan could see new blood tears begin to form and then proceed down her   
    face.
    "Do you know where he is now?" Bregan asked her. "Does your bond to him tell   
    you anything?"
    "No," she admitted to him sounding curious under her fear.
    "Then how do you know that he'll find you?"
    "I've never succeeded before, why should I now?"
    "Did he ever come to get you when you'd escaped him?"
    "No."
    "Did you go back to him?"
    "Yes, but if I didn't he would have been angrier than if I returned. He would have   
    given me to Mina." The mention of the name "Mina" caused the vampire to shiver.
    "It's a mind trick, that's all it is." he said. "A plucking of emotions to induce   
    loyalty. It is nothing without help." Of course he could always be wrong, but he   
    cautioned himself to avoid mentioning that.
    Katrina looked at the logic Bregan spoke and couldn't deny it, but the feeling was   
    still there. She was betraying her sire, her regnant and she knew it, but she could   
    fight it down for now.
    "Will you help me now?" he asked as he approached her across the shrinking   
    sunlight.
    Katrina nodded her head slowly, wondering what would happen if she lost control   
    of her actions while trying to help free herself.
    "Then where is this house?" He asked her as he smiled and brushed aside one of   
    her tears. He was surprised at himself, almost suscpecting the vampire to be   
    manipulating his emotions just as he had been describing. In the space of this one   
    conversation he had convinced himself that this vampire was still salvagable.
    "Yes, where is the beast's house?" a voice aboved them boomed. Bregan and   
    Katrina looked up to see what they both immeadiatly thought of as a were-hawk.   
    She had feathers instead of hair and great talons instead of hands. Her eyes were   
    those of a bird's and obviously had the accurate vision of that group of animals.   
    Even her human features, like her nose and the shape of her body, reminded them of   
    a hawk. "Where is the lair of Jared Mason, the killer of my sister and mentor. Lead   
    me there and I shall honor the agreement made by the pit bull."
    "Pit bull!" Bregan began shifting into Glabro form with anger. He moved forward   
    to confront the bird lady. "Listen lady, you should be more respectful of those you   
    choose as allies."
    "I need no allies, I am a magus of the Akashic Brotherhood. I need only my Do to   
    defeat my enemy."
    "You're not the only one with a score to settle, mage, and either way you'll have to   
    wait for nightfall to learn anything."
    "What makes you think you can stop me from doing as I please?" Bregan grinned   
    at her in a I know something you don't know manner.
    "Katrina fell asleep while we were arguing." The mage turned her gaze upon the   
    vampire and saw that she was indeed asleep, as only the dead could sleep. The   
    mage cursed him, and turned to leave.
    "I have my own leads, ones not tainted by the enemy." Her hawk-like features   
    faded and disappeared as she became a normal, attractive, though cold and   
    unfriendly, young woman of about twenty-three. Then she was gone. Bregan   
    blinked and suddenly she wasn't there.
    "Mages," he muttered.  
    
    Jaera ran back to her apartment as she had run to the industrial complex. Imagine   
    a shape-changer suggesting that she would need help. Then again she rarely   
    imagined herself using a derogatory term for anybody. This hunt had her worked   
    up, that was all. One had a right to be nervous on their first true hunt.
    At any rate, on to the Shadowspot.  
    
    The car started, and nothing was missing from under the hood. This was the big   
    event for the day; now Renfield could go hunting as soon as the sun set. Pushing   
    the car away from the vicinity of the house had helped matters greatly. Though   
    Jenny was conserving a lot of energy after her attack earlier in the day she was   
    causing enough trouble with missing tools and other small problems.
    They finished just in time, for the sun set and all three could feel Renfield waken as   
    his conscious will flowed through their blood bonds. Their master and god was   
    awake and that was all they needed to know.  
    
    Three miles away Carmilla felt the blood bond flare in strength as well. She felt   
    the shame and guilt from her willing betrayal increase as it worked to bring her back   
    into her master's fold. She glanced over to where the werewolf sat and watched her.   
    He was right, it was all in the mind, and more than that, it was only in the mind. She   
    had to believe that, true or false. Otherwise, there was virtually nothing she could   
    do against her sire.
    She was more worried about the Hunger. It was growing inside her spirit,   
    reaching up to release the Beast from its cage. She would make it through tonight,   
    but soon she would need blood. Then she would have to feed on, to kill, another   
    human being.
    "Where did the bird go?" she asked as she became more aware of her   
    surroundings.
    "Off to follow other leads," he said, simply. "Night has fallen, so I think its time   
    you started to lead me to this house." Carmilla blanched.
    "I have to go to the house?" she asked shakily. She had betrayed Renfield, to go   
    back was suicide.
    "I can't leave you behind me," he admitted bluntly. "It would be dangerous for us   
    both."
    "You don't trust me," she concluded. Bregan searched for a diplomatic answer to   
    the statement. He couldn't think of one, but he had always been somewhat lacking   
    in diplomacy.
    "No, I don't."
    "I can't trust myself, why should others trust me," she resigned herself to that truth.   
    No one could trust her as long as she remained a vampire, and as far as she knew,   
    there was no cure. She collected herself then, to leave, maybe Renfield would be   
    merciful when Carmilla brought him...
    "Katrina! Katrina! Katrina!" Bregan stepped back surprised by the sudden   
    outburst. "My name is Katrina! I am not Carmilla, I am not what he wants me to   
    be." She spoke the words as she had for the past year and a half, as a litany against   
    loss of self. She calmed down quickly, as she recovered her identity.
    "What was that?" Bregan asked suscipicously. Katrina stared at him a moment.
    "You wouldn't understand, now can we get this over with?" She wouldn't have to   
    worry soon, soon Renfield would be dead and she would be free. Then she could   
    do what she wanted to do, and not follow other people's commands.  
    
    He felt her prescence the moment he stepped into the building, the spark of life   
    that she possessed called to him from across the room. He saw a beautiful woman   
    with Mediterrennian features and dark, auburn hair. Here was the woman that had   
    been hunting for him, without a doubt.
    He should just wait to find a way to kill her, but the spark of life was too tempting.   
    Here was one with the potential to be his most prized minion, if she would come   
    under his fold. He examined her aura and was almost blinded by its brilliance. A   
    mage, he was sure of it, for as vampires are pale so are mages bright.
    Her aura held mainly the light blue of calm, this was coupled with the orange of a   
    sense of justice, and the yellow for spiritualism. These colors intermixed beautifully,   
    the orange and yellow rippling through the serene blue. In places, however, other   
    streaks appeared like wounds. The black of hatred, the purple of aggressiveness,   
    the bleeding red of anger, and the light, pale green of distrustfulness. All these were   
    trying to dominate over the central calm. It was an odd mix for one person, but   
    who was he too say what was normal for a mage?
    Yes, tonight she would be his prey. True she wasn't the sweet innocent he usually   
    preferred, but here was a greater challenge. Corrupting someone who knew what   
    he was, he was certain of his success. Of course, if he failed she would die and he   
    would still have one less enemy.  
    
    Jaera saw him enter, but didn't respond to it, letting him think that she hadn't seen   
    him. She, too, read auras, but without needing to concentrate on only one person.   
    The aura of Jared Mason stood out from the white of innocence that dominated the   
    club. Jared entered the club and drug in with him a swirling, deep red streaked with   
    purple and with a core of blackness at its center. The colors of psychotic lust,   
    aggressiveness and hate. All pale and dim revealing his vampiric nature.
    She had no doubts as to where his gaze would take him. She possessed the spark   
    of life, in essence she was like a rechargable battery. Most vampires wouldn't be   
    able to resist her as prey.
    She found it easy to keep track of him, his aura acting as a beacon. When would   
    he approach? She found herself thinking after an hour had passed and the vampire   
    had paid only minimal attention to her. She turned toward him to get more than just   
    a glance through the corner of her eye, and fell into one of the most simple of traps   
    Jared, now known as Renfield, possessed.
    She made eye to eye contact with the vampire. A brief struggle between Jaera's   
    young, stubborn, yet unpracticed willpower and Renfield's mental prowess plus   
    decades of expierence followed. The result had never been a question.  
    
    Lucy was in state of almost pure fear, she knew they were being haunted. She   
    knew that there was virtually nothing that she could do to a ghost. Only her loyalty   
    to Renfield kept her from leaving the house then and there. Even so, she was alone,   
    Varney was in town on the master's buisness, Mina was visiting Rohan in the   
    hospital and Renfield was hunting. She was alone with the ghost of the girl she had   
    helped kill.
    Lucy heard a brief laughter behind her. That set her off, she whirled and shot into   
    nothing.
    In the spirit world Jenny felt the bullet pass through her. Passing through physical   
    things was tiring, and she had no idea what would happen if she became exhausted.   
    She wondered if she could endanger her existence by using her energy.
    Kill her, a voice remarkably similar to her own said. Don't worry about the   
    consequences, kill here now!
    The effect of the voice was the exact opposite of what it asked, and Jenny broke   
    off from the frantic ghoul.  
    
    Downtown, Marie still watched over the body of her fiancee. The doctors had   
    told her that he had a good chance of recovery, but there was still some doubt. She   
    could hear it in their voices. Bregan had been in and taken care of all the paper   
    work for her, and then he had left for some unsaid reason. She wondered what   
    could be more important than his brother.
    The nurse came in then for the routine check every couple of hours or so. It was a   
    different nurse this time, odd.
    "Where's the other nurse," she asked suscipicously.
    "Oh, she was giving some blood earlier," The new nurse replied. She was rather   
    young, couldn't have been more than twenty, more likely seventeen. "There were   
    some complications," the girl's Indian features began to twitch into a smile as she   
    spoke in a British accent. "She probably won't be waking up." The girl produced a   
    gun with a silencer.
    Marie's eyes went wide. "How did you get by security?" she asked as she backed   
    away from the girl.
    "Oh, it helps to look like a teenager, most just don't see me as a threat. It makes it   
    so much more enjoyable when I kill them to see the looks on their faces. Bye now."   
    She started to point the gun at Marie and then changed her mind. "Maybe I should   
    let you watch your lover die first." Suddenly the air shimmered inside the room as   
    Bregan's guardian spirit moved to fulfil its orders.
    It materialized near the window as what seemed to be an abstract person made of   
    glass.
    _I have been charged with the safety of this mortal, you will do him no harm._
    "I'm fucking tired of ghosts!" Mina yelled as she fired at the new threat. Her   
    bullets had an effect, but not much, as each of the shards she shot off of it merely   
    grew back as the spirit used its power.
    _I am not a ghost,_ it corrected her. A large shard removed itself from the creature   
    and impaled the insane ghoul. She died as she emptied her clip into the spirit.   
    Security barged in just after the spirit disappeared, leaving a confused and frightened   
    Marie to try to explain things to them.  
    
    "This is it," Katrina whispered, as they pulled up to the run-down mansion that   
    contained Renfield's evil. They had approached without headlights, Bregan in   
    Glabro form so he could see in the dark.The house had been built nearly eighty years ago, now it was almost forgotten, as   
    Renfield wished it to be. He had a great deal of influence through his control of the   
    heroin trade, he had used this influence to hide records of the house. All that was   
    known was that the land around it was private property and had been that way for   
    as long as most mortals could remember. It had been hiding up here outside of   
    town all that time, hidden in the terrain. When the industrial complex had   
    threatened to bring the city closer to his haven, he arranged for it to be placed out of   
    buisness.
    Katrina didn't like being this close to a place she had tried many times to escape,   
    especially when it seemed that she had finally succeeded. She knew that to be only   
    temporary, however, the blood bond that insured loyalty told her that. To be truly   
    free, Renfield must die, and it looked like that was going to happen.
    Bregan parked his car behind some trees and shut off the engine.
    "What are you waiting for?"
    "It's called a stake out," he told her. "He's not here."
    "How can you possibly know that?" she asked him.
    "Instinct," he said. 'And a few chattering spirits,' he added to himself.

  
  
  
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	6. The Razor's Edge

It was on his way back to the mansion with Jaera, put to sleep by a mental   
    suggestion, that Renfield felt his blood bond with Mina break. She had made an   
    error of some kind, a fatal one. Now Renfield would need a new assassin.
    It was with these thoughts that he pulled up to his haven. He eased the car to a   
    stop and shut off the engine. He carried the mage's body inside as easily as if she   
    weighed no more than a briefcase.
    Two pairs of eyes watched him enter. Bregan covered the distance to the mansion   
    quietly and with as much strength as he could muster, preparing to barge in on the   
    Beast. Behind him Katrina steps came heavy, she was betraying her sire, and the   
    blood bond wouldn't let her forget it.
    Renfield was upstairs in his room, with Lucy two doors down, when he heard the   
    door crash in. The vampire sat up from feeding on his, now barely concious victim.   
    Odd, he thought, she shouldn't be awake yet.
    "Lucy!" He immeadiatly shouted. The ghoul was in his room instantly. "Call   
    Varney, guard her," he told her simply as he moved to see who was interfering with   
    his feast. Lucy turned to the phone and dialed Varney's cellular number.
    Behind the ghoul, Jaera went from semi-concious to concious within a moment.   
    She had instinctively continued the fight against Renfield's command and had   
    shortened its duration dramatically. Now she worked the pattern of her body anew,   
    repairing wounds and blood loss. Then she stood up as Lucy turned about. Jaera   
    dropped into stance, forgoing her bird-like enhancements against this more   
    vulnerable foe. Lucy's surprise was brief.
    "Okay Lady, let's see what you got," she said dropping into a short-hand kung-fu   
    fighting stance.
    Downstairs, Bregan had shifted into Crinos and caught the mage's scent upstairs.   
    His crinos form was what the Garou would call distinguished. He stood well over   
    eight feet and weighed nearly five-hundred-fifty pounds. His gray fur was short and   
    appeared disheveled, as if he had just woken up from a nap.
    'The mage's other leads seem to have betrayed her,' he thought to himself.
    "Well, well. Look at what we got heah," came a youthful, mocking voice from   
    somewhere above him. He looked up, as he stepped on the first stair to see the   
    teenaged face of his enemy.
    "What buisness might you have with me, Lupine?" the man asked. He sounded   
    sincere and trustworthy, infinately incapable of evil. How Bregan could even   
    consider harming this being, he had only been protecting himself.
    Bregan shook his head and howled in defiance of Renfield's emotion manipulation.   
    Renfield sighed, presence was entirely untrustworthy when dealing with foes who   
    knew his nature. Domination was a much better power, even with the necessity of   
    eye contact, emotions were a minor concern then.
    "You had my brother shot," the beast growled carefully avoiding the vampire's   
    direct gaze.
    "Ah do a lot o' that, which one would yous have been?" the vampire asked as it   
    advanced down the stairs. Outside, in the night, a pure beautiful howl erupted and   
    was answered by the howls of not to distant coyotes.
    The sound distracted both creatures for the briefest of moments.
    "What was his name then?" the vampire asked again, smiling.
    "Micheal Rohan," was the answering growl.
    "Ah the stubborn one. Then ah have you t' thank for my minion's death?" Bregan   
    didn't answer. Crinos form wasn't for talk, it was for battle! The werewolf charged   
    up the stairs growling all the way.  
    
    Upstairs, Lucy closed to a boxing distance with Jaera and let loose a hail of strikes,   
    sped up by her ghoulish celerity. Jaera managed to block each one and return a   
    barrage of her own. Soon the two appeared to be only a blur of motion as punches   
    and blocks flew with astonishing speed. Occaisonally a leg would fly out in an   
    attempt to connect, but neither was gaining ground on the other.
    Lucy was nearly a master of her art, the fighter more skilled than her was rare.   
    Jaera, however, practiced Do, the martial-art form that spawned all others. She was   
    nowhere near masterhood, but even a minor disciple of the pure form was more than   
    a match for its descendants. Only the powers of Lucy's ghoul blood kept her even   
    with her opponent.
    Jaera shot forward with one finger, appearing to aim for Lucy's eye. Lucy sneered   
    as she easily blocked the shot aside. Jaera jumped back then, out of Lucy's range in   
    apparent retreat.
    "Learn your lesson then? Lady." the forty-two year old teen-ager asked. Suddenly   
    Lucy dropped her stance as immense pain worked itself through her system. Jaera's   
    magick coursed through Lucy's system, inflaming every nerve and altering the   
    physical make-up of her throat and heart.
    Lucy clawed at her throat in an attempt to gain breath as her heart built up   
    pressure, and, in completion of the decidely vulgar magick, exploded. A large hole   
    appeared in the ghoul's body as her blood covered everything in the room.
    Jaera detected a slight shift in the weaves of quintessence about the ghoul.   
    Intellectually she knew it was the spirit forming into a wraith, but she couldn't know   
    for sure. Either way, it was free quintessence for the moment.
    Jenny watched as Lucy's wraith began to manifest in the shadowlands. She was   
    about to move to attack the new wraith when suddenly the manifestation ceased.   
    Before she could form, Lucy's pattern was dissolved into the most basic of energies   
    and funnelled into the mage. Caught between the transition of living to dead, the   
    ghoul had no defense against the attack. She literally ceased to be. Jenny stared for   
    a moment at the woman who had killed the ghoul and waited to be destroyed as   
    well, but the mage merely ignored her. The wraith went downstairs to the   
    developing battle there.
    Jaera felt the cold touch of Paradox even as she looked over her handiwork in   
    satisfaction. Many of her colleagues said that her attacks were too brutal, but she   
    felt that such individuals as Lucy deserved ugly deaths.
    Below she could hear a battle going on, and Renfield's laughter. The fiend who   
    had killed her sister and just now violated her own will and body was down there.   
    'Now was time to make him pay,' she thought as she worked her transformation.
    As soon as Bregan was close enough to Renfield the werewolf used one of his few   
    tricks. He leaped past the vampire, raking him with his claws as he passed.   
    Renfield was knocked off the stairwell to the floor below from the impact, but the   
    fall was a mere annoyance for the vampire. The oozing slash marks, however, were   
    objects for concern.
    Bregan leaped off of the stairwell and slashed at vampire again as Renfield   
    returned to his feet. Renfield ducked as he grabbed the hairy arm and slammed the   
    werewolf into, and through, the wall behind him.
    Renfield laughed at the dazed werewolf.
    The air suddenly filled with a blaring metallic song
    Renfield's laugh increased in volume at its sound.
    "Ye trying t' scare me spook? Ah'm not so easily whipped."
    "Nor am I!" screeched the hawk-like Jaera as she leaped down and slashed with   
    her talons. Alone they were of no more concern to the vampire than a bullet or   
    knife, but fueled with magick of the prime sphere they became deadly. Three more   
    slashes sprouted bloody and oozing upon the now annoyed vampire.
    He whipped out his hand faster than Jaera had believed anything could move and   
    grabbed her by the throat. The vampire lifted her up into the air as if she were a rag   
    doll. He began to direct his gaze toward her, but she stubbornly shut her eyes as she   
    used life magick yet again.
    Suddenly she was very heavy and even Renfield's terrible strength could not lift her   
    for long. She dropped all the way through the floor into the basement. Then the   
    werewolf slammed into Renfield again. They landed five feet away, the werewolf   
    pinning the vampire to the ground and lowering his fang-filled maw to bite.
    Renfield liked his head where and like it was, so, gritting his teeth, he pulled his   
    legs to his chest and pushed out. The werewolf again flew, but this time as Renfield   
    directed. By the time Bregan stood up Renfield was preparing for another attack.   
    Behind him Jaera jumped up through the hole and landed as lightly as a bird.
    Renfield laughed.
    Outside Katrina stared away from the house, down the dirt road, and saw the fast   
    approaching car by its headlights. It would be here in mere minutes, and she   
    suscpected she knew who it was. Katrina tried to think of something she could do   
    to stop Varney's approach.
    She didn't know how she would fair in combat with him, she'd never tried to learn,   
    and she didn't want to learn now.
    _"Use what he gave you against him,"_ whispered the strange voice that had urged   
    Katrina to run. Then it was gone again.
    She thought of something then, a trick Renfield did not possess. Something she   
    had learned over two years as a vampire with no friends in human shape. She   
    looked deep inside herself and found the power to do what she needed to do.
    Katrina's voice erupted into a pure, primal, beautiful cry into the night. Almost   
    instantly she was answered by a pack of coyotes, their howls proclaiming their   
    approach.
    By the sounds of things they would be her long before the car below could   
    navigate the twisting road. She waited and soon a pack of ten coyotes appeared   
    before her. She could see Varney's headlights below and knew she had only a   
    minute or two to ask them for help.
    She took the gaze of the leader and met it, eye to eye. Unlike Renfield, however,   
    she did so merely to communicate.
    "A man with black hair and a goutee is driving up in that car," she said. "Please   
    stop him from entering the house."
    I have nothing against this man, the coyote's eyes said.
    "He is the servant of a vampire," she protested.
    You are a vampire.
    "This man has forced me to feed on one of your brothers before." The coyote   
    appeared to think it over. "I had been starved and couldn't control myself," she said   
    to the coyote, hoping he had some small understanding of a vampire's Hunger. It   
    being something that often went hungry itself.
    We will fight this man, for our brother. It expressed a silence, as a man would   
    pause between thoughts, and then continued. I thank you for your honesty and for   
    not commanding us as others of your kind would. With that the coyote and his pack   
    melded into the terrain around the house.
    Of course she didn't have the power to command anything, nor the desire, but the   
    coyote didn't need to know that. Inside the house the battle continued, Katrina   
    thanked whoever owned the voice and began to move toward the house. She   
    reached the remainder of the door and saw the battle going on inside, between the   
    mage they had encountered earlier, the werewolf and her master.
    Katrina looked down saw a long, sharp piece of wood. Her immeadiate action   
    was to recoil, for she associated stakes with any number of tortures. No one held it   
    though, so even her sub-concious admitted that it was safe. She reached down   
    slowly and picked it up.
    "Carmilla, don't just stand there girl! Defend me!" yelled Renfield once he noticed   
    her prescence. The young vampire stood there in confusion as Carmilla warred with   
    Katrina. As five years of torture, domination and blood bond competed with her   
    true desires and a will weakened by years of helplessness. She managed to at least   
    advance to the battle during the struggle.
    Bregan watched her with concern, worried that she would lose this battle. He   
    shifted into Glabro form to more easily talk.
    "It's all in your head, Katrina!" he shouted. "You don't have to obey him."   
    Renfield, recoiling from a slash by Jaera's unrelenting talons, threw all his weight   
    behind a punch into the face of the distracted werewolf.
    Bregan was knocked off his feet by the force of the punch, he even thought he felt   
    his jaw break. The pain passed quickly, a vampire's fist didn't stop the process of   
    regeneration.
    Coming out of the punch Renfield went into a roll to control his inevitable fall. He   
    came back to his feet facing Katrina.
    "What are you doing I commanded you to aid me!" he yelled at her. "Are you not   
    my thrall? Am I not your regnant?" Katrina eyes lost their distracted light as she   
    looked up at her sire and regnant. He smiled down at her as he turned to face the   
    approaching mage and healing werewolf.
    Then he felt his connection to Katrina break, as Lucy's and Mina's already had. He   
    remembered the stake she had been holding and tried to turn around to face its   
    approach.
    The speed of his turn made Katrina miss the heart, but wood piercing a vampire's   
    skin anywhere was agony. Renfield clutched the stake with his left hand as his right   
    back-handed Katrina.
    He was no longer holding back, conserving blood for later in the battle. Katrina   
    flew backwards into a wall as the force of Renfield's blow. Her eyes rolled back   
    into her skull as she slipped down to the ground. A bright spot of red on the wall   
    where she hit, and a trail of blood following her down.
    Renfield ripped the stake from his chest as he dodged the mage's semi-frenzied   
    attack.
    Jaera's rage, however, was nothing to the depths of emotion contained in the souls   
    of Garou and Kindred. Bregan, returned to Crinos form, roared out in anger   
    directed at the vampire. Renfield answered him with a primal cry of his own as he   
    swatted aside the mage.
    The two came together in a blur and then locked in place. Jaera stood up and   
    watched as the werewolf and vampire tested their strength against each other. The   
    smaller vampire soon proved to be the stronger, at the moment a small car would   
    have been easy to lift for him. Despite this the werewolf stubbornly against the   
    vampire who was trying to force Bregan's hands back against his arms.
    Jaera shook her head to clear it of the awe she felt as she watched the titan's aura's   
    ripple and collide with each other. She attacked as the vampire brought the   
    werewolf forcibly to his knees. Renfield fell and rolled back to his feet sending a fist   
    flying at the mage. She blocked and tried to slash at him again as the werewolf   
    leaped past her, slashing as he went past the vampire's reach.
    Renfield dodged away from the Garou's leap, catching Jaera's hand and snapping it   
    off. Jaera cried in pain as she struggled to clear her mind enough to use magick to   
    heal.
    Bregan meanwhile twisted himself about and came flying at the werewolf again.
    As Varney pulled up he knew something was wrong immeadiately. Like his master   
    he possessed knowledge of the discipline auspex, but even without it he could have   
    heard the bestial roars and his masters battle cries inside. He parked the car and   
    shut off the engine as a cry of pain emerged from inside. Some woman he hadn't   
    met yet, perhaps the one that had been hunting his master.
    The moment he stepped out of the car and shut the door, Varney knew that he too   
    was being hunted. He drew his gun prepared to face whatever it was. Then   
    suddenly the gun was pulled from his grasp and thrown away by some power.
    Varney had only his fists and his vampric powers of potence and celerity when the   
    coyotes swarmed over him.
    Inside they ignored Varney's cries of rage and pain as he was torn to pieces by the   
    pack of coyotes.
    Renfield reached out with his hand and intercepted the leaping werewolf by   
    grabbing it's throat. Immeaditly the five-hundred pound creature felt itself pushed   
    backwords until it hit a wall, three feet above the ground. Renfield bared his fangs   
    and launched forward to try to bite the werewolf and recover some lost blood.
    Bregan had different ideas, he brought his claws up and slashed off Renfield's arm   
    at the elbow. The werewolf dropped as the unfazed vampire kicked up. Bregan felt   
    his neck break from the blow. He would heal quickly, but not before the vampire   
    could bring the deadly weapons of his fangs to use.
    Suddenly the vampire was flying backwards, blasted by an unseen force. He was   
    standing again quickly and again approaching the temporarily incapcitated werewolf.   
    Bregan could feel his body again, and, like the Kindred, wasn't out of rage yet.
    Jaera watched as she tried to heal her hand. She knew the werewolf couldn't win   
    the battle as he was, so she delayed the healing in order to perform another effect.   
    She reached out with her mind and drew a simple pattern, something found   
    everyday but with larger dimensions. Finally she filled it with quintessence to make   
    it real. She felt paradox infest her pattern as her magick took shape.
    A foot long wasp appeared just in front of the vampire.
    The insect had no real mind or soul, just physical life and programmed instincts. It   
    attacked Renfield as the closest threat, stinging the angry vampire in the chest.   
    Renfield grabbed at the thing and crushed it in his hand, his momentum stopped for   
    the moment.
    Bregan limped ahead, pain racking every movement. He had to rest in order to   
    heal, but he couldn't rest with this vampire still standing. Despite the hole in his   
    chest, despite his missing arm, despite the deep gashes on his body, despite several   
    broken bones, despite all that, Renfield was unfazed.
    Katrina woke up with a terrible pain on the back of her head. For brief moment   
    she couldn't remember what had happened, but the scene she saw across the room   
    jolted her memory.
    Jaera was cradling her arm as her magick slowly reformed the flesh of her hand,   
    paradox touching her even more as she healed what should not be possible to heal.   
    Then the paradox began to leak out of her and take shape. Sensations flowed into   
    her mind, twisting the appearance of things. Jaera forced herself to concentrate on   
    the healing, shutting out all other considerations.
    Bregan was limping slowly forward to continue to face Renfield. The warriors,   
    though Bregan wasn't as much of a fighter as many of his packmates, were beaten,   
    what could she do?
    Jenny's spirit was outside searching the ground for something to the background   
    noises of battle and howling coyotes. Then she found it and, using what little   
    energy she had, picked it up and carried it inside to Katrina.
    Katrina watched as a gun seemed to fly to her and land gently before her.
    _"Use it,"_ the voice that had advised her twice before said before it disappeared.
    "I don't know how to use a gun," Katrina protested, voice weak and tired. There   
    was no response to her protest. She picked up the gun, paused "This won't kill   
    him," she whispered. Then she fired into the wall behind Renfield.
    If she failed to hit, she succeeded in grabbing his attention. Renfield turned away   
    from Bregan to face her, his face displaying all the inhuman rage that was driving   
    him. Renfield advanced on this most recent enemy.
    Katrina unloaded the thirteen bullet clip at Renfield, managing to hit six times.   
    Each shot stopped him for a brief moment before he continuing towards her.
    On the other end of the room Jaera began to regain control of her senses. She   
    thanked the powers that be that the backlash had been such a small one. It would   
    have been unfortunate, to say the least, if she had to battle a paradox spirit in   
    addition to this vampire.
    "How do you expect to stop me with a gun, child?" he demanded of her as he   
    came on. The only answer was that she didn't, she only expected to buy some time.
    Bregan, the only thing seperating him and Renfield's fury being physical limits,   
    used that time to rest for a brief moment before he launched himself against Renfield   
    again. Renfield, actually starting to feel the pain of wounds, turned around slowly   
    as the werewolf's claws slashed downward and sliced into his leg. Renfield fell to   
    one knee from the injury.
    "Beast," the vampire spat as he pulled back his remaining arm. A talon, shaped   
    and empowered by magick for the killing of the supernatural, sliced into Renfield's   
    face. "Witch, I'll see t' you later," the vampire promised as he sent his fist flying into   
    the werewolf. Bregan fell backwards and landed on his back a mere two feet away.
    Jaera moved for another slash with her rebuilt hand, but the still fighting vampire   
    turned his punch into a back hand. The mage was knocked away just as Bregan had   
    been. Renfield stood up unsteadily, his vampric rage and arrogance keeping him in   
    a fight he had already lost.
    Eventually the claws or the magickal talons would take him down in his weakened   
    condition, but he didn't care. He wanted to see who he could take with him.
    "Who's next? Who wants to fight me now, eh?" he asked of the two warriors.   
    Bregan found that he couldn't get up, that he needed to heal some more before   
    continuing the battle. The mage, however, was well enough to rise again and come   
    forward.
    Renfield whirled on her and tried to catch her eye to eye, but Jaera knew that trick   
    now. He would not catch her again so easily. She circled him, looking for a safe   
    way to approach.
    Renfield did not have time for such games, but he didn't dare press the attack   
    himself. Soon the werewolf would heal from the wounds Renfield had given him,   
    just as this mage had while she rested and the werewolf fought. He planned to take   
    one of them down with him either way. He just didn't know which one yet.
    Suddenly the vampire jerked back as something erupted from his chest. This time   
    the stake didn't miss the heart. Renfield fell to the ground paralyzed and unable to   
    move. He hadn't felt this way since the night of his Embrace.
    He could remember it clearly, from the slave woman he had tried to take all the   
    way to when his unit had found his body and removed the stake that was meant to   
    keep him there until sunrise.
    Lost in these memories, Renfield didn't see the claws and talons that ended his life.
    Kindred, Garou and Mage collapsed in exhaustion as Renfield's body turned into   
    dust.
    "Excuse me," Katrina whispered weakly from where she lay. Bregan turned to   
    look at her. "What's your name?"
    "Bregan Rohan."
    "You owe me a violin," she reminded him. He chuckled, and suddenly had a   
    thought.
    In the Shadowlands Jenny's wraith also felt exhausted, but also renewed as one of   
    her ties to the physical world was resolved.

  
  
  
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	7. Pulling a Breath

It had been late in the evening when they had first confronted Renfield. By three   
    o'clock in the morning they had recovered sufficently to allow safe travel. Jaera   
    refused Bregan's offer of a ride, saying something about the stagnation of reality and   
    left. That left only Katrina.
    "I'm hungry again, I would be a danger to you."
    "I have an idea about that," Bregan said. "Come on. It's just me in the apartment   
    right now, and I think I can handle you. Tomorrow night, there's someone I'd like   
    you to meet."
    Katrina's tired face crinkled with concern, her last nightmare was still fresh in her   
    mind.
    "I still owe you that violin, you know. How can I get it to you if I don't know   
    where you are?"
    Katrina shook her head in disbelief, but he was right. She severly doubted that   
    she'd be able to beat him, even in frenzy. She smiled as she raised her face to meet   
    his.
    "If you insist."  
    
    Marie pulled up to Micheal and Bregan's apartment building sometime around   
    noon. She had to find out what he had been doing all this time. His car wasn't   
    parked in the lot, so he wasn't there, but he had to return sooner or later. Then it   
    would be time to get some answers.
    She walked straight to the room and used her key to get inside and lock the door   
    behind her.
    Marie strode back to the room that was Bregan's thinking she could find some   
    clues there. The shades were drawn in, but she saw a lump in the bed, like a body,   
    and moved forward to investigate.
    She found, curled up in Bregan's blankets, the cold body of a teenage girl.
    At first Marie thought the girl was dead, but as she watched the girl's face   
    scrunched into an expression of fear and despair. She was apparently deep in the   
    throws of some nightmare.
    "What is she doing sleeping this time of day anyway?" she asked no one in   
    particular. She reached up to pull open the shades for a better look when somebody   
    grabbed her hand. Marie jumped away and twirled to find Bregan standing behind   
    her.
    "She's ill," Bregan said as he pulled the blankets back over the girl. "I'm taking her   
    to someone that can help her tonight." He set down the violin case he had carried in   
    down on his desk, which was loaded to brimming with items related to the Predator   
    movies. "How's Mike?"
    "The doctors believe he's going to recover." Marie scanned the young man before   
    her, looking for some clue to something.
    "Good news," he said as he slumped into a chair.
    "Somebody tried to kill him yesterday," Marie said.
    "Were you there when it happened?" Bregan tensed.
    "The oddest thing happened," she contined. "A piece of glass killed the girl who   
    was trying to kill him. It was like it was intelligent or something." Marie watched   
    Bregan for some reaction.
    "That is strange, what did the cops say?"
    "I didn't know how to explain it, neither did they. I think they passed it off as a   
    case of self-defense." Bregan smiled.
    "How lucky for you, such things don't happen everyday."
    "Not without help anyway," she leveled an accusing stare at Bregan but couldn't   
    find anything to answer her questions. She heard sobbing sounds and looked back   
    to see red tears run from the girl's eyes.
    "Please leave," Bregan requested quietly. Marie left wondering, but not daring to   
    ask, what illness makes one cry tears of blood.  
    
    Jaera finished her meditation early that day, she was unsatisfied with her   
    performance against the vampire, Renfield. She had not taken her revenge on her   
    own as she had wished, but that was a minor consideration. She was disappointed   
    that she had failed to recognize the need for allies.
    Next time would be different, she knew some new tricks now. Most important   
    among them that of seeking help.  
    
    Unlike most of the Sky-Chasers pack, Two-Feet was neither homid, nor Fianna.   
    She was lupus and belonged to the Children of Gaia tribe. She was the pack's only   
    philodox. The pack came to her when their was discord, they came to her to settle   
    their problems. She was the judge, the mediator, the deliverer of punishment and   
    reward. She was also one of the pack's leaders, despite the predominately Fianna   
    background.
    It was possible that she was the leader, but no official choice had ever been made   
    among them. She was seen as superior in times of peace, Ian Caghen, an ahroun,   
    led the physical battles, and Wanders-Alone, a theurge, led the spiritual battles. All   
    three were of the second rank in garous society, and none claimed leadership over   
    the others, that was just the way things were.
    She had received her name from the other lupus she knew. They had meant it as   
    an insult, but she took it as an honor. Simply put, Two-Feet was one of the few   
    lupus to actually be comfortable in homid form. The tribal elders said that made her   
    the perfect mediator for the two breeds, while others said it merely made her a   
    freak. If she had been a part of another tribe, the Red Talons for example, she   
    would probably have been shunned or worse.
    She held her court in the house the pack had bought on the edge of town, near the   
    caern they belonged to. Her chair sat at the head of a large conference table   
    situated underneath a hanging crucifix. The crucifix was a source of ridicule among   
    the other packs. Some felt that displaying the trappings of a human religon was   
    betrayal of the garou people, others were just jerks. The Children of Gaia, however,   
    had long respected the ideals of christianity. The peaceful tribe felt a spiritual   
    kinship with hese fellow speakers of mercy, healing and forgiveness. The history of   
    the garou told that the Children had helped guide the church to power along with a   
    group of mages known as the Celestial Chorus. That time was long gone, however,   
    and with it any official communication between the cousins of garou and human.
    Despite the formal appearance of this court, she really had no care for the   
    trappings of power, or of power itself. She merely wished to prevent unnecessary   
    conflict. This trait of the Children often led some to believe them to be cowards or   
    weaklings. That was a mistake that the Get of Fenris, a tribe who respected only   
    strength, made more often than they would admit.
    Before her now stood Bregan Rohan, the pack's younger theurge. He had come in   
    the night, alone and asked to meet in private. He was not one of the pack's best   
    warriors, she had beaten him many times in ritual competition. Nor did she sucspect   
    him of being able to turn against them, so she was not worried about herself. The   
    situation did arouse her curiousity, however.
    "Theurge Bregan Rohan, you come to me with a request for aid." She told him.
    "I do."
    "You requested that I meet you in privacy and I have agreed, but I ask why." She   
    waited for him to respond.
    "I am afraid that the other members of the pack would not understand my   
    position." Two-Feet cocked an eyebrow.
    "What is your position?" her voice mocked his expression exactly. Most lupus   
    weren't capable of such mockery in homid form. Most weren't even comfortable   
    with speech.
    "You know the rite of cleansing."
    "You have seen me use it."
    "Can you cleanse a person?" she thought she knew his problem now. He had been   
    on a personal quest to avenge his brother, it was possible that he had become   
    contaminated with a bane in that time.
    "Who is this person?" she asked as a formality. Bregan held up his hand to   
    indicate that she wait for a moment. He turned around and opened the door,   
    gesturing for someone to enter.
    What looked like a fifteen year old girl wearing black jeans and a blood stained t-  
    shirt that had once been white. The girl appeared nervous and frightened and   
    shuffled in slowly. She had dark hair, and oh so pale skin.
    Two-Feet could smell what she was then.
    "You bring the Kindred here?" she accused Bregan.
    "I ask that you cure her of her affliction. She and two-others aided me in the   
    destruction of a vampire who dates to the time of the civil war."
    "She is a vampire, a leech, a minion of the Wyrm. She should be destroyed."
    "And if she were a Garou wishing to be freed of a bane?" Two-Feet had to   
    concede to the point. Other Garou wouldn't have, but the Children of Gaia were   
    well known for their tolerance, and Two-Feet could see that the Wyrm had not   
    gained a solid hold upon her yet.
    "If the ritual fails, we will kill you," she told Katrina.
    "I don't want to live...forever." Two-Feet nodded in acceptance.
    "Wait here, I will summon the pack," she said. Bregan nodded acceptance. Within   
    an hour all ten members of the pack had arrived.
    "You have summoned us her for a cadaver?" Ian yelled disbelievingly.
    "Be quiet, we have neighbors," Wanders-Alone answered. He was the most   
    powerful theurge, there was only one other, of the pack and he was also a metis,   
    which made his position odd. Metis were the result of two Garou mating, they were   
    generally deformed in some way and always sterile. Garou were meant to breed   
    with wolves and humans, not each other. Such was the equivilent of incest to the   
    garou, as such metis were generally despised.
    "I have told her my judgement and she has accepted."
    "What is your judgement?" Nobody had expected that voice, fewer had seen him   
    enter. Dreamwalker, the Silent Strider lupus had arrived. He had perhaps twice the   
    experience of any other individual in the room, but outranked none of them.   
    Nobody really knew what he had done. He was respected among the younger   
    Garou.
    "If we fail, she dies. To do otherwise is to let a threat walk free."
    "Agreed," the last speaker was a ragabash member of the tribe, Steals-Laughter.   
    He wasn't quite as cheerful as most of his auspice. He wasn't into pranks or jokes,   
    he used the trickster nature he had been born with for more practical means. All the   
    jokes had been burned out of him long before he even discovered his wolf heritage.
    "Then we must find a place to perform the ritual." The pack put their heads   
    together and soon thought of a suitable place just outside the city, complete with   
    pure water and birch trees.
    Within an hour they had arrived at the appointed place.
    "You must truly want to be cleansed for this work, otherwise all my knowledge   
    would be useless," Two-Feet told Katrina. "We will perform the ritual at dawn, for   
    it is then that its power is strongest. When light overcomes darkness, as it did   
    nearly two thousand years ago, and will again when Gaia is healed of the Wyrm's   
    cancer." She told Katrina this as the circle was being drawn with the branch of a   
    birch tree dipped in pure water. Katrina sucspected that the dawn was meant to kill   
    her if the ritual failed, but she set aside such doubts. "You must not leave the circle   
    for any reason, understand?" Katrina nodded.
    They waited patiently for dawn, Dreamwalker looking on curiously. Watching   
    Bregan give words of encourgement to the girl in the circle awaiting Gaia's   
    judgement. As the moment began to grow closer Katrina noticed less and less the   
    people around her. Breaking the blood bond was child's play compared to the   
    willpower it took to remain in that circle. She centered her focus on the eyes of the   
    man who had brought this chance to her.
    Then the moment finally happened, light began to break on the horizen.   
    Something seemed to twist in her soul as the sunlight began to burn her vampiric   
    flesh. Something screamed at her to run from the sun, to preserve her current   
    existence. She recognised the thing, it was the same thing that drove her to kill   
    twice, the same thing that gave her the dreams that haunted her sleep. It was a self-  
    serving thing, and it wanted to make her an extension of itself.
    In the real world the branch of birch was set on fire and Two-Feet began circling   
    along the line drawn in the earth. All the Garou were in crinos form as they   
    watched waiting for the moment that required their participation. Katrina, in the   
    circle, felt the fear intensify as things such as eager werewolves, the rising sun and a   
    burning stake combatted with her will. The struggle in her mind eclipsed the   
    burning of the sun as her desire for freedom warred with the vile, shapeless thing   
    that reached from darkness.
    She looked to Bregan, and could barely distinguish him out of all the other wolf-  
    men. As she extended her willpower to fight the unnatural instinct to flee, the   
    philodox's ritual progressed. Her power reached into the umbra to repair and   
    cleanse the girl's body and soul.
    As soon as Two-Feet made a complete circle the werewolves surrounding the   
    circle howled in eerie, terrifying manner. The sound of their voices nearly sent   
    Katrina running in terror. She held her ground, however, even as the pain began.   
    Pain that she could feel even through her battle. Mixed in were her pain and hope   
    and the gripping thing's pain and fear.
    She didn't feel like she was burning, so she knew it wasn't the sun. It felt more like   
    something was being pulled from her, ripped out of her soul. Then it ended, and   
    Katrina collapsed exhausted and exhilirated.
    She could feel the sunlight stream down and touch her face as it finally peeked   
    over the horizen. She could feel her heart pumping hot blood again, and she felt her   
    lungs pull in air of necessity rather than pleasure. It had worked, she was human   
    again.
    She examined her teeth and found no fangs. She looked at her skin and saw that it   
    was flushed with her own blood. She was still physically fifteen, but in a few short   
    years that would change. She was alive, and that was what mattered.
    She rushed out of the circle then to where she had identified Bregan and hugged   
    his hairy form as he shifted back into homid form. He held her close to him as she   
    cried tears, real tears not blood, of happiness on his shoulder.
    Dreamwalker approached the two, Two-Feet behind with the other two leaders in   
    two.
    "Very impressive," he said simply. This was Bregan's vision of the ideal Garou.   
    Dreamwalker was wise, kind, strong, and brave.
    "You sound like you're giving me the credit." Bregan accused.
    "He is, to both of you," Two-Feet agreed. When Bregan and Katrina stared at   
    them in confusion the lupus in homid forms explained themselves.
    "Dreamwalker has just informed me that he has seen this tried before."
    "Not a single of the Kindred who attempted it succeeded in passing the tests of   
    ritual. Every one of them eventually tried to run and as a result was burned or killed   
    by one of the garou."
    "But it worked..." Katrina whispered as if expecting to become a vampire right   
    then under the sun.
    "Yes, but the ritual is just that...ritual. The real power is here," Two-Feet pointed   
    to Katrina. "In you, we are just limited in unlocking it."
    "I still don't see what part I played," Bregan said. Two-Feet smiled at him   
    knowingly.
    "Boy, your eyes never left each other through the entire thing."
    "I'll be by later for the full story, but for now know that you have performed   
    nothing less than a miracle this morning." The mystic touched an amulet he wore   
    about his neck and began to walk away. They quickly lost sight of him as his amulet   
    began to function.
    The remainder of the pack passed by to give grudging congradulations on their   
    way out of the clearing. Soon only Two-Feet, Bregan and Katrina remained.
    "I will want to hear the story as well, Bregan. This must be reported to the elders   
    of the Spring Oasis Caern."
    Back at the mansion, former lair of the vampire known both as Jared Mason and   
    Renfield, Jenny felt another connection to the world resolve itself. She had led   
    Katrina to means for her salvation, all by telling her to run.
    Now she was tired, she had to get some sleep, she had no choice. She had been   
    active too long.
    Later that day copies of her songs appeared in the office of a record company   
    manager with a written permission to use them as they wanted. She wanted a   
    legacy, not fame. After the manager read them, and liked them, she felt all her   
    connections to the physical world cut.
    She heard a deep part of herself cry out in rage, but only faintly, as she took the   
    first of many steps out of this Underworld to transcendence. Only then did she   
    sleep, leaving her thwarted shadow in control for eight hours. It appeared as a   
    twisted version of her other half, and laughed. There were still many chances for it   
    to win out in the end, and end both their existences.  
    
    Five years later, Katrina thought back to the events that had occured following her   
    cure. She still possessed some of her vampric powers, but rarely used them. Mostly   
    when she wanted to talk to the occaisonal animal. The nightmares had remained as   
    well, but they had diminished over the past few years.
    First came Micheal's recovery, he apparently remembered nothing of his   
    conversation with Bregan or the spirit world in general, but nothing else was   
    blurred. Soon afterwards he and Marie were married on a bright summer's day   
    under the blue sky.
    Then came Katrina's reunion with her family, this was a media event of some size,   
    because it revealed the innocence of certain individuals. The authorities were given   
    a description of the true criminal, this matched exactly with reports of the drug-lord   
    Varney's description. The few Kindred who knew the implications behind that   
    chose not to persue matters, certain prominent members of the San Franciscan   
    garou displayed themselves quite prominently on the screen. The Kindred would   
    not survive an open war with the Garou.
    Of course Katrina went back to school, she completed it within two years by   
    taking extra courses to make up for lost time.
    Enrollment in college came next, and she was now in her junior year of that,   
    majoring in music. She was already making a name for herself as a skilled violinist   
    and composer, of course some of her music was a little too morbid for most tastes,   
    but that was too be expected considering her history.
    Last year she had married Bregan, the event being a small affair with only her   
    immeadiate family, Micheal and Marie, and Two-Feet and Dreamwalker. The latter   
    using the names Tina Feason and Derrick Konn. The mage, Jaera Citereh had also   
    made a brief, surprise visit, not staying long for fear of the coming consequences of   
    acquiring to much paradox.
    Today, she had learned that she was pregnant. Soon Bregan would be home from   
    his shift, he had finally become a cop, and she would tell him then.
    Katrina thought on how none of this would have been possible except for the gift   
    she had received five years ago.
    A gift of sunlight.

  
  
  
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